SPA Modeler

So this weekend I finally was able to attend a Phoenix AMPS meeting. During the meetings, the club also encourages working on a model to pass the time, so I started this one that I’ve had in my stash for awhile. Academy’s 1/35 M981 Fire Support Team Vehicle, aka FISTV. These things are extremely similar to the M901 ITVs that I served on once upon a time, although instead of TOW missiles, they are full of radios, a laser designator, observation gear, and other tools for the trade for artillery forward observers.

Anyways, here is the kit box



A photo of the real thing during Desert Shield/Desert Storm that I’ll be using for reference. Not many photos to be found of these things there.



and how much I assembled during the meeting



I’ll be taking this one slow for now, as I have several other higher priority projects to wrap up first.

Nice subject!

Cool subject. Are you doing desert storm or the box art scheme (which I would love to see)?

Thanks guys!
John, I’m gonna be doing the overall sand scheme, not NATO tri color.

Very cool! Can't wait to see the build Stik!

Thanks Mike. At the rate I’m going with things, this won’t be done until sometime early next year…

Oh I feel your pain. Work has me so exhausted that I'm never going to get things done.

Cool choice of subject Carlos, I really like this era of US fighting vehicles. I knew about the M901, but I have to say this one is new to me. I knew about things like the FIST track (from reading Team Yankee) but I hadn't realised such things were specialist tracks, I'd just assumed they were standard M113's.

Looking forward to seeing where you go with it.

Mike, I can’t even blame it on work, seeing as how I am now retired. Just stuff going on here and there…

Stuart, the Army started fielding these things in the mid to late 80’s, and their only action was in Desert Storm. It has since been replaced by a version of the Bradley with similar but more modern equipment. But yes, before the M981 came along, the artillery fire support teams did operate from standard M113s, or other non specialized vehicles.

Never heard of this, looks really interesting.