Kit Review: Italeri 1/35 Scale Kit No. 6431: M24 Chaffee (Early); 253 parts (250 in light olive drab styrene, 2 in steel colored vinyl, 1 sheet of clear styrene); retail price around $23
Advantages: Provides some new detail parts and tracks to make the early production model M24 light tank, as well as new markings
Disadvantages: Does not correct (backdate) the kit completely
Rating: Highly Recommended
Recommendation: For all US and WWII Armor fans
F I R S T L O O K
One of the better Italeri kits for over 25 years has been their pleasant little Chaffee kit. It has not been a perfect kit, but it is an easy build that results in a very recognizable replica of its prototype. But the kit only could be built as the later production version, with twin-pin rubber block tracks and the flotation accessory pads on the bow and stern plates. It was also missing some smaller details.
Italeri has redone the molds (not sure if they cloned them, but it does appear that they did do a new belly pan mold and not simply fill in the older one). Some new bits have been added to one sprue (making a clever use of dead space) and a new sprue with 11 new parts added. The latter includes new drivers for the new set of vinyl single-pin steel tracks, spare track links, and some new stowage bits. A windshield is also included and is provided with a clear styrene "glass" section as well.
That's the good news. The one item of bad news is that they did get rid of the front set of pads for mounting the never-used flotation devices, but left the rear ones on the stern plate (part 20). These have to be removed, and as they were hollow, "that's gonna leave a mark."
None of the kit's vicissitudes have been fixed, either. For the accuracy buff, you will still need to get a set of AFV Club M41 wheels to replace the kit ones with for an accurate running gear with the lightening holes in the idler wheel and rims for the road wheels. Also, the armored covers over the rear air intakes have to be removed and "jacked up" about .030" to get the right appearance on the rear deck. The .50 caliber also has to go (in my kit, surprisingly the M2 was broken in half, so I have no option.) The kit does come with new decals, this time for a total of five vehicles: 1st AD in Italy, 1945; US Army Germany 1945; 3ID in Korea, 1951; 1st RTR, Germany
1945; and French Indochina 1953. All seem to be missing bits, but it is unknown if Italeri could not see them on the photos used for markings or just skipped them. Nevertheless, extra markings will probably be needed for all of them. As they are all US based vehicles, only one color is available: olive drab.Overall, it is nice that Italeri gave us a different version of the kit, but a bit disappointing they did not try to fix more of the kit up at the same time. Still it is reasonable, and in this day and age that is nice to see.
Cookie Sewell AMPS