R.N. LCM (3)
Model by Franco Fusco, crew by Peter Dennis
In April 1941 Higgins saw a plan for a ramped vessel capable of landing a tank and decided to design his own starting from his LCVP. When in May of the following year he was asked to design such a vessel and show the preliminary design to a USN USMC commission that would be visiting New Orleans to examine his LCVP he answered he would have shown a fully working vessel in three days.
The LCM, the big brother of the LCVP, was entirely made of steel, could transport a 30 ton tank or 60 men or 60000 pounds of cargo at 8 knots for 130 miles.
8631 LCM 3 were built from late 1942 to 1945 and 650 were transferred to the UK via Lend Lease.
LCM 3s were the largest possible barges that could be handled (empty) by heavy-duty davits from transport ships. Some LCM used in Normandy were carried across the English Channel on board larger ships, but the majority crossed under tow or under their own power.
LCMs were used in Africa, Sicily, continental Italy, Normandy, Provence and the Pacific and were operated by the US Navy, Coast Guard and the Royal Navy.
This is a waterline, full load, model ready to hit the beach and with a workable ramp. The result is not 100% accurate but a playable and, I hope, easy to build model.
The model can be built without hull numbers and separate sheets are provided to customise your model; full parts with hull numbers for boats that hit the beaches of Normandy are included.
Notes
The Bundle will allow you to have on your table the LCM-3 in 28mm scale. You can choose between a fast building or a detailed ramp, both working, and a fast building or detailed wheelhouse. Opting for the fast building ramp and wheelhouse, and omitting optional parts, you can build a sturdy wargame model reasonably fast.
The bundle consists of five sheets for the model and crew, two sheet with optional parts with markings for 8 boats to be printed on 100 g/sm, 120 g/sm and 160 g/sm (suggested) paper, and 18 sheets for the instructions.
Once downloaded, the sheets can be printed as often as you like, which means you can build any number of Landing Craft Mechanized very cheaply.
You will need scissors, a craft knife, a metal ruler, glue, 100 g/sm, 120 g/sm and 160 g/sm (recommended weight) paper, 1mm card (I recommend finnboard/wood pulp board), cereal box type card and light card. You will also need acrylic paint pens of various colours (sepia, grey, etc…) to touch up the parts, all of which are described in the included how-to section.
The sheets are laid down in A4 format. Print your sheets at “fit to page” setting (Adobe Acrobat) onto A4 paper and US legal sized paper, on US letter size will print at 93%.
You can, of course, print the LCM in any scale you chouse, making it extremely flexible in this respect.
Our Motto is Paper Armies, Proper Armies!
Enjoy