Academy
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Overview Advantages: first kit of this tank to reach the market; excellent suspension and lower hull from proven kits; combines best of earlier kits with new hull and turret Disadvantages: 76mm gun has "Italeri step" in it; turret shape is still not quite right (see text); hull rear plate is dead vertical Background About eight years ago I picked up a books from the Combined Arms Center and School at Fort Leavenworth, "Commanding the Red Army's Sherman Tanks" by retired Colonel (HSU) Dmitriy Loza. This book showed how the Russians really appreciated the tanks and made the most of them. Loza was the first Soviet armor commander to drive into Vienna with an M4A2 76mm VVSS and one of the commanders of the Manchurian operation in a new M4A2 76mm HVSS tank. With the photos from his personal collection and the great text, I've always wanted to do up his command tank. I was pleased to hear that, after the disappointing Italeri "do it yourself" M4A2 kit, two new kits of the late-model A2 were coming out this year, one from Academy and one from DML. I spotted this one in the APG Museum gift shop today and picked it up in a shot. Contents For its good points, the kit now shows that Academy is seriously committed to doing up the entire M3 and M4 medium tank family, and like all current manufacturers, has created common sprues for them: * A (55 parts) - VVSS suspension with early and mid-production track guards, spoked or welded-cover road wheels, and two types of drivers * C (61 parts) - Late production ("47 degree") hull details * D (47 parts) – .30 and .50 machine guns, ammo boxes, OVM tools * E (32 parts) – 76mm ("T23") turret with oval loader's hatch details * F (17 parts) - M4A2 engine deck and exhaust details * H (216 parts) - detail sprue with casting details, jerry cans, spare tracks, wheels and shackles * I (33 parts) - "T23" type 76mm cast turret with oval loader's hatch The kit comes with a lot of details, such as three-part periscopes, separate sections for the late-model canvas mantlet shroud, petite hand-holds, and a nice set of machine guns. The .50 caliber is nearly as nice as those in the separate set, with a nearly cylindrical cooling collar around the quick-change fitting – why they don't simply include one of the sprues from the machine gun kit boggles me, but then again, this one already had the tools for the OVM on it. Overall, based on the ease of assembly of these kits in the past this would be a winner...BUT... I wish that Academy would spend more time in research and get an accurate kit out on the market, rather than one which is close but suffers from some silly mistakes. This is, alas, one of those kits. First off, the M4 and M4A2 shared a lot of basic hull components and fittings, and one of them was the fact that they both had an upper rear plate set at 10 degrees from vertical. The kit comes with the correct shape plate for the A2, but set at 0 degrees – dead vertical. This is correctable, but will require cutting off the entire rear plate, shimming the sides out about 1mm or so, and then filling and filing to get a good fit. Considering how difficult it is to "pull" vertical parts from an injection mold – and doing it right could have yielded a "universal" M4/M4A2 hull that would only have needed new upper rear plates, this is plain dumb. The kit also keeps the lower wading trunk parts from the M10 GMC series with this kit; these are parts F10, F11, and F12, and can be left off. The Soviets do not appear to have ever tried to wade this tank, and as such I don't believe they ever got the trunking. The turret is not quite right, either. But before I go on, I have to say that up until now NOBODY has a good, accurate plastic kit of a late model Sherman cast turret. The darn thing is all cast and smooth shapes, and very hard to reduce to a mold that pulls out to leave only two or three parts to replicate it. The ejection/pistol port on the left rear side is the Achilles' Heel of all injection molded turrets, and this kit uses a "stick-on" one to replicate it, and that translates as a lot of putty and fairing to get a good fit. In plastic DML currently has the best, and this would be a good runner up, but so far the very best and most accurate ones are those from Chesapeake Model Designs in resin. The kit also - and inexplicably – copies the worst flaw of the 30-year-old Italeri kit, namely the "stepped" gun barrel. The M1 series 76mm gun is smoothly tapered from the muzzle cap/muzzle brake all the way back to the breech. This has a step about one scale foot out in front of the mantlet. Result: the barrel has to go. The model comes with a set of T51 irreversible rubber block tracks, which is okay; but Loza's book both points out and shows the Soviets preferred the T49 triple-cleat cast steel ones for use. If you have the Academy M12 SP 155mm gun, if you swap tracks with that kit you will wind up with a decent set of vinyl ones to use. If not, RHPS makes a great set that literally snaps together and looks nice when installed. The other thing is that the Soviets really believed in kitting out the tank, and as a result Loza's photos and the jacket cover show the tanks festooned with many Soviet "Must Have" items, such as unditching logs, 200 liter (55 gallon) fuel drums, extra tracks, etc. but few boxes and tarpaulins like the Americans. If you have a few old Soviet tank kits such as the Tamiya T-34, filching some parts from them would be useful. Decals are included for three different tanks: one in Berlin in May 1945, one in Germany in 1945 with the slogan "Vpered K Pobede!" (Forward to Victory!) on its side, and one from Loza's 1st Battalion, 46th Guards Tank Brigade in Vienna, April 1945 (it says Berlin but the photo and the book say otherwise.) Contents Overall, this kit is a bit of a disappointment, but it does provide the basis for a good model. It's just a shame that the modeler still has to go out to get after-market parts to get it right. |
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