Post by Beekster on Dec 13, 2022 11:27:27 GMT -6
If you have perused the Latest Grabs thread, you will know that Santa recently brought this to me:
There's no question that overall this is the best rendition yet of the M18, easily surpassing the Academy and AFV Club efforts. It's represents a early production example with the raised vent for the APU on the left front of the roof, and an M1 76mm gun without muzzle brake. So let's see what's in the box. Sprue C contains the flat-pack lower hull:
Nicely detailed, and the inside surface has mounting points for the fighting compartment floor and firewall. The downside is those various depressions in the side wall parts, which will be an annoyance if an interior is desired.
Sprue B provides the upper hull, firewall, transmission cover plate, rear plate, and rear hull plates along with the hydraulic traverse motor for the floor. What's particularly impressive is that Tamya provides some detail of the exhaust pipes at the back of the hull deck. Neither of the earlier kits from Academy or AFV Club provided anything here.
Sprue D provides the turret parts, and it is quite long so I've photographed from both ends. It's excellent, though for real detail hounds there are a few little bits and box missing from the turret roof. Tiger Model Designs has nice resin replacements if you wish to add more detail. If you want a later gun barrel, there are turned aluminum options out there. Many M18s had later guns fitted, especially in post-war service with smaller nation armies. The gun is canted at the production angle; if you want to model one of the T-70 prototypes that were fielded at Anzio you are in for some serious turret surgery.
Sprue E is a bit of a grab bag: A few suspension bits, pioneer tools, engine deck panels, hatches, stowage rails, and some turret interior bits. Tamiya provides a good foundation there, but a lot more could be added, especially wiring.
Two A sprues provide the suspension arms, sponson ammo racks, wheels, and the nice-looking link and length tracks. The kit gives you the standard 31-tooth sprockets and T69 single-pin tracks. Many M18s retained this to the end of their days, but there's another option which I will discuss below.
Finally, the clear N sprue gives you lenses for headlights and rearview mirrors, along with goggles for figures not included in the box. There is one standing figure in typical dress with a steel helmet, but plenty of other resin and plastic options exist that are more representative of service dress, especially winter dress. Sprue AA is a M2 .50cal machine gun and accessories. And as usual, there's a sprue of poly caps for the drive sprockets and some black thread for a tow cable and a decal sheet with options for two vehicles from the 805th TD battalion.
So what's missing? Well, there's no driver's compartment so a full interior will be a serious job of work. AFV Club's kit provides seats (but no mounts), an instrument panel, and a transmission. The latter is greatly simplified, lacks detail, and has some shape issues that will require some tedious lamination of thin strip stock and sanding to shape in order to fix. The interior-minded modeler will have to add the APU and electrical box behind the driver, a junction box on the sponson support, wiring, a spare periscope box, a dome light on the roof panel on both sides, proper seat mounts, a compass, axle shafts to the final drives, crossbar for the steering, and steering levers for both sides of the compartment, fire extinguisher handles behind the co-driver, portable fire extinguisher and APU fuel tank on the sponson. Plus a mesh barrier behind the co-driver, and the list goes on. David Doyle has a great Squadron-Signal Walk Around book and an equally useful Images of War book on the M18 to help with detailing this area. There's also room to see beneath the engine air inlet cover, but no engine. The M18 used the same R975C1 and C4 variants as the Sherman, so the aftermarket can provide a solution if desired.
Now, about the sprockets and tracks. Some preserved M18s have the 13-tooth sprockets and rubber chevron T85E1 tracks from the M24 Chaffee. Those are an option for a shiny collector's vehicle today.
There's no question that overall this is the best rendition yet of the M18, easily surpassing the Academy and AFV Club efforts. It's represents a early production example with the raised vent for the APU on the left front of the roof, and an M1 76mm gun without muzzle brake. So let's see what's in the box. Sprue C contains the flat-pack lower hull:
Nicely detailed, and the inside surface has mounting points for the fighting compartment floor and firewall. The downside is those various depressions in the side wall parts, which will be an annoyance if an interior is desired.
Sprue B provides the upper hull, firewall, transmission cover plate, rear plate, and rear hull plates along with the hydraulic traverse motor for the floor. What's particularly impressive is that Tamya provides some detail of the exhaust pipes at the back of the hull deck. Neither of the earlier kits from Academy or AFV Club provided anything here.
Sprue D provides the turret parts, and it is quite long so I've photographed from both ends. It's excellent, though for real detail hounds there are a few little bits and box missing from the turret roof. Tiger Model Designs has nice resin replacements if you wish to add more detail. If you want a later gun barrel, there are turned aluminum options out there. Many M18s had later guns fitted, especially in post-war service with smaller nation armies. The gun is canted at the production angle; if you want to model one of the T-70 prototypes that were fielded at Anzio you are in for some serious turret surgery.
Sprue E is a bit of a grab bag: A few suspension bits, pioneer tools, engine deck panels, hatches, stowage rails, and some turret interior bits. Tamiya provides a good foundation there, but a lot more could be added, especially wiring.
Two A sprues provide the suspension arms, sponson ammo racks, wheels, and the nice-looking link and length tracks. The kit gives you the standard 31-tooth sprockets and T69 single-pin tracks. Many M18s retained this to the end of their days, but there's another option which I will discuss below.
Finally, the clear N sprue gives you lenses for headlights and rearview mirrors, along with goggles for figures not included in the box. There is one standing figure in typical dress with a steel helmet, but plenty of other resin and plastic options exist that are more representative of service dress, especially winter dress. Sprue AA is a M2 .50cal machine gun and accessories. And as usual, there's a sprue of poly caps for the drive sprockets and some black thread for a tow cable and a decal sheet with options for two vehicles from the 805th TD battalion.
So what's missing? Well, there's no driver's compartment so a full interior will be a serious job of work. AFV Club's kit provides seats (but no mounts), an instrument panel, and a transmission. The latter is greatly simplified, lacks detail, and has some shape issues that will require some tedious lamination of thin strip stock and sanding to shape in order to fix. The interior-minded modeler will have to add the APU and electrical box behind the driver, a junction box on the sponson support, wiring, a spare periscope box, a dome light on the roof panel on both sides, proper seat mounts, a compass, axle shafts to the final drives, crossbar for the steering, and steering levers for both sides of the compartment, fire extinguisher handles behind the co-driver, portable fire extinguisher and APU fuel tank on the sponson. Plus a mesh barrier behind the co-driver, and the list goes on. David Doyle has a great Squadron-Signal Walk Around book and an equally useful Images of War book on the M18 to help with detailing this area. There's also room to see beneath the engine air inlet cover, but no engine. The M18 used the same R975C1 and C4 variants as the Sherman, so the aftermarket can provide a solution if desired.
Now, about the sprockets and tracks. Some preserved M18s have the 13-tooth sprockets and rubber chevron T85E1 tracks from the M24 Chaffee. Those are an option for a shiny collector's vehicle today.