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It looks even more attractive in Israeli service. The Israelis have a special name for their M60s – The Magach. Their improvements & additions make the tank look even more fearsome & futuristic.
So when we saw Academy’s 1:35 IDF M60A1 Blazer with KMT-4 mineroller (Ref: AC1367), we decided to take a break from World War Two subjects & give it a go.
The Blazer reactive armour panels, extra machine guns & the host of options in the box certainly make this an interesting option.
We decided to personalize the model a bit & work out which of the myriad of variants of the M60 to build.
The Magach M60s first appeared in the Yom Kippur War & more followed to replace losses. It was just prior to the 1982 Lebanon War that they were fitted with the explosive panels, designed to defeat shaped charge weapons like RPGs.
So we were aiming for a Lebanon era tank. We armed ourselves with two books, “Magach6B Gal – The M60A1 in IDF Service” by Desert Eagle Publishing & Concord Publications' “Tank Battles of the Mid-East Wars (2)”.
To get our M60 to match the vehicles of the time, we built it pretty much straight from the box. Although the box art shows a later version equipped with Merkava style tracks, we used aftermarket AFV Club M60 tracks. We also opted for the sleeveless gun & the more conventional machine gun set-up of dual crew-served .30cals seen during that period.
It was painted in Xtracolor's enamel Israeli tank Sand Grey (Ref: X810) & given heavy washes & chipping using acrylics with a quick drybrushing using lightened versions of the base coat. The only additions were bundles of crew kit from the spares box or made in putty to adorn the spacious turret. It was a fun project & once finished this is a large kit of a big vehicle, so just make sure you’ve got the shelf space to display it!