"Back it up Mack, Atomic Annie's in Town"

[superchief]

Considered obsolete by the fielding of the Corporal missile, the "Atomic Annie" was kept in service until the 1960's. Germany and South Korea were the primary home of these huge weapons and the cannon's mobility was it's strong suit. Capable of firing a nuclear shell 10 miles it kept America's adversaries off balance during it's time in Army service. The model was offered first by Renwal in the late 1950's and was quite a big project for the young inexperienced model builder (like me). I don't know if it was the price (A whopping $8.00 at the hobby shop) or my father's belief that I would be better off building a 69 cent plastic kit with out too much trouble, I never got the kit. When Revell re-issued this model a few years back I snatched one up still remembering how great the box-art cover looked on the kit. Unfortunately the model isn't up to current standards of plastic kits. In fact it's almost like a toy, not much detail and in need of a lot of scratch building to make the model presentable. The model is actually 3 kits in one, two prime mover tractors and the cannon itself. I won't list all my "upgrades" but the biggest one was replacing the gun barrel with a barrel I built from brass tubing. I choose to mount it on a base as moving the model it involves handling three units and easy to break. I added the generator trailer and the 1950's era soldiers from a variety of sources. It's funny, modeling 1950's American soldiers is difficult, especially the soft "foreign legion" hats as most resin and plastic figures are from WWII or current desert storm uniform styles.

[superchief]

Annie's a big girl!

[superchief]

Lead prime mover tractor.

[superchief]

The brass and white plastic are some of the improvements to the kit

[superchief]

On the work bench

[superchief]

Some minor improvements

[gwb123]

Well, I learned something tonight. I had not realized that these had been deployed outside of the United States, but per Wikipedia they went to both Germany and Korea!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M65_atomic_cannon

 

I like the premise of your scene. It reminds me of a story I heard of a Pershing carrier that went off the road in Germany near a farmer's house. He saw a whole bunch of US Army vehicles and personnel show up outside, making a whole lot of noise to recover the vehicle and missile. He came out of the house to complain that this was disturbing his livestock and that the Army needed to go somewhere else. My friend who told the story said he was yelling and waving his arms until he got close enough to see what had fallen into the draw. They said his eyes got as big as the moon and he asked "Ein grossen boomen macher?" The officer in charge replied "Yah, ein grossen boomen macher ist!" At which point the farmer politely smiled, nodded, walked back to his house, locked the door, and was not heard from again.

[superchief]

Foreign legion hat, 1950's, "the New Action Army".

[Proud Kraut]

Excellent dio, can't get enough of regarding your pictures. Well done. Could you please tell us the scale of the kit? Thanks very much for sharing this gem!

[skypilot6670]

Beautiful work thank you very much for posting. Mike

[sundance]

That's beautiful.

[superchief]

P.K.- The scale of the model is 1:32, very close to 1:35. The soldier figures that are present in the diorama are 1:35, as we used to say in the Service "Close enough for government work".... I forgot to mention the VW bug is a Revell of Germany plastic kit, it's 1:35 scale and I believe it's of a later than 1960 VW but I added it to give the viewer an idea of how big the prototype cannon was. Thanks to all the positive comments.

[cagedfalcon]

P.K.- The scale of the model is 1:32, very close to 1:35. The soldier figures that are present in the diorama are 1:35, as we used to say in the Service "Close enough for government work".... I forgot to mention the VW bug is a Revell of Germany plastic kit, it's 1:35 scale and I believe it's of a later than 1960 VW but I added it to give the viewer an idea of how big the prototype cannon was. Thanks to all the positive comments.

Great scene. Though VW was ammo.

 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

 

[Proud Kraut]

P.K.- The scale of the model is 1:32, very close to 1:35. The soldier figures that are present in the diorama are 1:35, as we used to say in the Service "Close enough for government work".... I forgot to mention the VW bug is a Revell of Germany plastic kit, it's 1:35 scale and I believe it's of a later than 1960 VW but I added it to give the viewer an idea of how big the prototype cannon was. Thanks to all the positive comments.

 

Thanks SC! Wonderfull idea to put the Atomic Annie and a civillian "counterpart" on the same scene. I really like that dio very much!

 

Though.....there's one small error in this scene. NO German would remain calm when realizing that anybody places his foot onto his car's chrome bumber!

 

PK

 

P.S.: Excellent story: "Grosser Bum-Macher", lol.

[gwb123]

"Though.....there's one small error in this scene. NO German would remain calm when realizing that anybody places his foot onto his car's chrome bumber! "

 

That would be the next scene in this little vignette. I would like to think most American GI's with more than two weeks in Germany would know better, but there is always that one in the crowd that would do something like this!

[Old Marine]

That is excellent as always. A fantastic and very creative model.

[ArtyScout]

This is a very cool diorama. I love the contrast of the VW Beetle's color to that of the gun and then there is a decal of "Beetle Bailey" on the gun carriage. Nice touch!

Very good foliage and groundwork too.

 

Semper Fi.

 

Manny

[superchief]

Thanks Manny

 

The Beetle Bailey decal was made on my computer and printer. For some reason or other, when I applied the decal, all the colors ran off so I had to hand paint the colors back on after the decal dried. The guns were all "nick named" by their gun crews, usually after a cartoon character.

 

P.K.

I put the GI with his foot on the bumper like a traffic cop would writing up a speeding ticket. I like to think that a scene like this adds a human touch, people can identify with a diorama if something gets their attention. No one commented on the civilian's German shepherd "wetting" the tire on the prime mover, sort of retaliation for the foot on the VW bumper.

[Proud Kraut]

No one commented on the civilian's German shepherd "wetting" the tire on the prime mover, sort of retaliation for the foot on the VW bumper.

 

Ha, how could I miss that. The more I'm regarding this dio the more I like it, wunderbar! One more question please: what exact OD color did you use for the Annie?

[gwb123]

"I put the GI with his foot on the bumper like a traffic cop would writing up a speeding ticket. I like to think that a scene like this adds a human touch, people can identify with a diorama if something gets their attention."

 

I agree. And not entirely unlikely to happen in the real world!

 

"No one commented on the civilian's German shepherd "wetting" the tire on the prime mover, sort of retaliation for the foot on the VW bumper."

 

I missed that. LOL, that is absolutely perfect!

 

This is really great work.

[GITom1944]

A creative idea flawlessly executed. You can't beat that! Nice work on the barrel, too.

 

Tom

[ArtyScout]

No one commented on the civilian's German shepherd "wetting" the tire on the prime mover, sort of retaliation for the foot on the VW bumper.

 

I guess it must've been the angle of the photo which I didn't notice the dog doing his due. Nice touch.

 

Semper Fi.

 

Manny

[cutiger83]

Great diorama! Thanks for posting...Kat

[gwb123]

I am not sure which version of the Revell Volkswagen Beetle was used for this display, but back in the day the artists at that company could make anything look dramatic and interesting.

 

How do you do it with a mundane subject like a VW? You make it look like it is in the middle of a John LeCarre spy novel, smuggling documents in Cold War Berlin... in the night, and in the rain, no less!

 

(Image taken from the Internet.)

[Proud Kraut]

I am not sure which version of the Revell Volkswagen Beetle was used for this display, but back in the day the artists at that company could make anything look dramatic and interesting.

 

How do you do it with a mundane subject like a VW? You make it look like it is in the middle of a John LeCarre spy novel, smuggling documents in Cold War Berlin... in the night, and in the rain, no less!

 

(Image taken from the Internet.)

 

Indeed very cool boxart! I don't know if this was a reasonable price but I once saw such a "Cadet Series" Beetle with a mint box offered at a modeling show for about $100.