US M163 VADS

Scott Bregi | AFV Club

The M163 Vulcan Air Defense System (VADS) was a U.S. Army self-propelled antiaircraft weapon based on the M113 armored personnel carrier. Its turret mounted the radar-assisted 20 mm M61 Vulcan six-barrel rotary cannon, capable of very high rates of fire against low-flying aircraft and helicopters. Entering service in the late 1960s, the highly mobile M163 accompanied armored and mechanized units. It could also engage ground targets and remained in U.S. Army service into the 1990s.

This model will be a conversion using the AFV Club M113A1 and Academy’s M163. Likely in a REFORGER-era configuration.

Additional Accessories:

• Tracks?

UPDATE 2026-09-25:

This is AFV Club’s newer M113 kit, kitbashed with Academy’s M163 Vulcan. The Academy top plate was slightly undersized, so I added strip around it. I plan to use the AFV Club parts with extra detail, though a Black Dog replacement set is on the way. The AFV Club suspension is fiddly, so I redesigned the road-wheel mounts to remove the wheels for painting: I replaced the stub axles with 0.080-inch plastic rod and added nested tubing and 0.060-inch pins to keep them stable. I also made the drive sprockets removable. The suspension has working torsion bars, telescoping shock absorbers, and an eccentric rear idler for track tension. Because this is an M163, I added the second-road-wheel shock absorber omitted from the ACAV kit. The newer AFV Club hull is much more detailed than the older Chaparral kit. Hobby Link makes an excellent resin conversion with a full interior, turret, gun, ammunition racks, and APU, but it seems unavailable everywhere. For the gun, I have a Master set with turned-brass barrels. The road wheels are nicely molded and snap together around an outer ring with the correct M113 profile. My modifications let me paint the wheels, sprockets, and suspension separately, then install them afterward without wobble. The road-wheel detail is toward the outer edge.