During the Vietnam War, the LVTP5 and its variants played a critical, if ill-considered, tactical role. Conceived as a replacement for the World War II-era LVT series of amphibian transports and support vehicles, the LVTP5 was intended for ship-to-shore assault and was not designed for land load-bearing and personnel transportation duties. Unfortunately, this is exactly what the LVTP5 did in Vietnam. It was a big target, heavy, slow, and cumbersome, even in water; on land, it was worse. The fuel tanks were built into the bottom of the hull, and exploding land mines guaranteed a complete brew-up of the entire vehicle. Marines habitually rode outside on a sandbagged deck for this reason. Mechanically a horror to maintain, land operations only aggravated this problem. Bogie wheels failed frequently, and pulling the transmission was an all-day operation. But, in spite of all these problems, the LVTP5 was used constantly throughout the Marine's involvement in the war, and it performed admirably.

AFV Club's LVTP5A1 represents the lightly-improved variant of the LVTP5, which first carried the Marines ashore at Danang in March of 1965. The kit consists of seven sprues of hull parts and four sprues of track sections and links, all well-molded and ninety-nine percent free of flash. Some parts are extremely thin or small, so great care must be exercised in removing them from the sprues. The instructions are also large and drawn well, with clear references to part numbers and installation.

Being a big kit for 1/35-scale, AFV Club tried to strike a balance between ease of assembly, and accuracy of detail. Consequently it succeeded in many aspects but failed in others, so some alteration in the order of the steps is required. Assembly begins with the lower hull and bogie wheel assemblies, and the idler wheels and drive sprockets. The instructions steps indicate that the bogie wheels should be assembled, glued in place, then the hull sides glued on. Instead, glue on the hull sides first, then the assembled bogies can be popped in and glued last. This will allow time for adjusting the wheel height as they set up to assure evenness. There are also idler adjustment rods which are a bit spindly and easily broken, so exercise great care in their assembly and installation.

The instructions also indicate that the tracks should be assembled and installed before attaching the hull sides. Since the majority of the top track sections will be hidden inside the hull, assemble only enough links and sections to hold the tracks to the idlers and drive sprockets. Part of the top section of track from the idler forward into the hull will have to be trimmed off, allowing just enough to extend into the hull to create the illusion of a full track run. This way, the tracks can be removed for painting and reinstalled after the model is completely finished.

On the actual LVTP5A1, the hull sides are plate sections which cover the flotation cells, and each plate is a single piece that is curved at the top to meet the deck. For some reason, AFV Club elected to end the hull sides where the curved area begins, and molded these curves into the deck piece instead. As a result, an ugly seam occurs where there should be none. The joint is guaranteed to have gaps and misalignments which must be scraped and puttied and sanded. This is unfortunate, for it seems that since AFV Club molded the curved hull sections into the deck, it could have molded them into the hull sides just as easily, and avoided creating so much unnecessary work. Also, in each rear corner, a fillet of styrene strip was required for gaps between the hull sides and the deck that putty would not fill. Of course, all this scraping and sanding eliminated some of the weld seam detail in the hull sides, and this had to be detailed in with a pyrograuvre. In fact, some of the weld seams had to be created from scratch, since they were missing from the kit entirely; others just required exaggeration with the pyrograuvre.

In nearly all of the steps, there are several points where the instructions indicate that delicate details should be installed. Common sense demands instead that they be left off until the model is completely finished. These are details such as lock handles, headlights, hatch covers, and most grab handles. In fact, all grab handles should be replaced with brass rod, since these are far too delicate to withstand the handling the model will receive. There is some other finer detailing required, such as adding torsion spring casings to the commander's and driver's hatches, installing electric cables to the headlights, and adding a canvas dust cover to the turret machine gun mount. This last improvement can be omitted if a sandbag "bunker" is installed, which was typical SOP for LVTP crews in Vietnam.

As far as kit quality and ease of assembly is concerned, the AFV Club LVTP5A1 rates highly. It is not for the novice, but it is not so complex that only advanced modelers will enjoy it. In the end, though, be aware that forethought and step rearrangement ultimately will produce finer results than can be achieved through strict step-by-step assembly.