Volume III

By T.P. Schweider, MSGT. USMC, retired.

The Rule of Fist

It appears that a certain number of modelers who wish to make battle-scarred AFV’s do so by damaging the road wheels; taking nicks and chucks out of the rubber portions of the said wheels. There are several after-market kits of damaged road wheels available. Now I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do this, hey, it’s your model! Just bear in mind that as an operating rule, observed by U.S., British and German tankers whose tanks have rubber-tired road wheels it’s The Rule of Fist! Namely, if the amount of rubber missing from the road wheel is bigger than your fist, YOU REPLACE THE ROAD WHEEL. This is the reason you will notice that in pictures of tanks on active service that they carry extra road wheels. So ding your road wheels if you want to, just don’t get carried away if you want an authentic looking model.

(There was a quaint social custom in the Antebellum South that said that it was perfectly acceptable for a man to beat his wife with a switch, providing that the main branch was no thicker than his thumb: the RULE OF THUMB)

(Note: The pictures used in this article came from various sources on the internet and are used for illustration purposes only)