I'm gonna be bantering around from subject to subject for a while \like a bird trying to find a decent place to land in bad weather. Bear with me folks!
In keeping with the most recent theme of MPC's military toys from the '60 & '70s we bring you this really cool Armoured Vehicle-Launched Bridge or AVLB. I don't have any playsets to associate this toy with so this for now will be a stand-alone post. Some members of the various fb hobby groups I belong to relate that they had it as part of a Combat Engineer set. To-date I have yet to find pictures on the Web of that set, plus I ended up with three of these and not one of them was 100% complete. The closest thing I can find to a real life inspiration for this toy is the M60A1 AVLB which utilized a modified M60 Patton tank chassis to transport and deploy a temporary combat bridge which was hinged in the middle and lowered via hydraulics. Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina
Courtesy Wikipedia
Courtesy Wikipedia
Courtesy Wikipedia
The toy features a spring-loaded deployment mechanism which lifts the bridge up and forward. As the bridge moves forward in its arc it opens up, then slowly plops down on the ground in the deployed position. I believe there was supposed to be some kind of cannon barrel on the front of the piece (totally non-prototypical) as there appears to be a firing mechanism but none of my three samples had a barrel with it. The overall dimensions are: 16 1/2" (41.91cm) L x 6" (15.24cm) W x 1 5/8" (4.12cm) H. The hull measures 10 1/2" (26.67cm) L x 5 1/4" (13.33cm) W x 4 3/8" (11.11cm) H. The bridge is 13" (33.02cm) L.
The AVLB with bridge
The bridge
Deployed position
Towards the top middle you can just discern the spring
You hold down the connector plate with one hand....
...while inserting the tab on the bridge into the slot in the hull. The bridge is now 'locked and loaded'
On the hull front there is most definitely a place to fit a barrel and a small spring loaded firing mechanism. I have yet to see pictures of a complete AVLB unit on the Web
A perfect match for MPC's line of large military vehicles
I think this is the first time I've seen this Ed? How cool it is . . . to cool for engineering school!
ReplyDeleteH
hahahaha Quite honestly Hugh, I didn't know about this either until it came up in an eBay search of MPC Army tanks. I saw it it, put an egregiously high bid on it and thankfully won it for a really decent low price. Just the luck of the draw. Since then I've gotten a couple more but none are complete all missing the gun barrel
DeleteVery cool toy. I never even heard of it until recently. I guess it goes on my want list now. The M48 tank also carried an AVLB and they had two small machine gun turrets on top.
ReplyDeleteBunkermeister
This is slowly turning into one of MPC's hidden gems. I've gotten so many "never saw that before" comments on it. I guess that's the result of MPC's poor image among collector's - the Rodney Dangerfield syndrome. Everyone knows and loves Marx, hardly anyone knows MPC.
Delete