Opinions please....1/35 U.S. WWII SPG

treadhead wrote: : Who in your humble opinion makes the best 1/35 U.S. WWII M-10 : Wolverine, M-26 Jackson and British WII Achilles?? : Erm - the M-26 is the Pershing. I think you meant M-36?

Probably Academy, as they make a M-10 (early and late duckbills) the Achilles and the M-36.

I think Testors/Italeri is the only other M-36 producer, and that is really a M-36B1, or 90mm turret on a standard M4A3 hull.

However, I think Dragon is the only company that (finally) makes the M3/M4 VVSS units with the proper casting marks and bolts - well, aside from the "missing" bolt holes on the front of the suspension units.

Bruce

The AFV Club versions are the most accurate of the ones out there. For some reason Academy got the turrets a bit off and as a result -- while the hulls have more details in some cases -- the turrets let them down.

Worst of the lot are the old Tamiya M10 and M36 which are not even

1/35 scale. The Italeri one is an M36B1 with an M4A3 hull and as such an odd variant, and the turret takes too much effort to correct (bogus basket detail and simplified gun, including no breechblock from what I recall!)

Cookie Sewell

There are no really good US tank destroyer kits at the present time (by the way, the terms Wolverine and Jackson seem to be postwar inventions). The Academy kits are well-engineered and very easy to assemble. Unfortunately, they are a complete mess when it comes to actually resembling the original vehicles. The upper hulls are far too deep, making the whole vehicle look too tall, the overall length of the hull is too short and the upper tail plate too steep. This also throws off the position of the armor lugs on the hull sides (though later hulls did not have these, so they can be left off). The turrets are off as well--the M10 turret is far too narrow, and the M36 turret is slightly too small in diameter, while the rear bustle is too short. The M36 kit does include three different gun tubes, an optional front armor plate with machine gun mount (a postwar modification seen on some Asian vehicles), and the optional roof armor seen on postwar vehicles. It also includes a choice of the diesel or gasoline engine deck and tail plate. The AFV Club M10 has a much better hull shape, thought the turret is slightly too wide. The later, "Duckbill," turret is better, as is the

17 pounder Achilles. AFV Club includes a turned metal barrel in their kits. The engine grills have too few bars in the grillwork (12 instead of 24), if this bothers you. The new grills in the Dragon Shermans are correct, and can be adapted to AFV Club's deck opening with sanding at the front edge and shimming on the sides (the new Dragon M4A3 Premium kit includes the M4A2 grills as unused parts). The AFV Club M36 is depicted with the diesel engine deck, making it an M36B2, a version not used by the US Army. If you scratch build the armored roof and add the postwar exhaust deflector and a 90 mm gun with muzzle brake, you can depict a French vehicle in Indochina in the 1950's. The AFV kits don't assemble as easily as the Academy kits-- expect to need to filler here and there. The AFV Club kit can be corrected with a resin upper hull that doubles the overall cost, or you can kitbash the Academy and AFV Club M36 kits together and get all the parts you need (there will be major surgery required to graft the Academy engine deck to the AFV Club hull). As mentioned, Academy includes the armored roof if you want to do a French vehicle (though you'll need to scribe the joints in the three hatches--Academy depicts the roof as a single plate), as well as the gun with muzzle brake seen on French TD's. The Academy lower tail plate and exhaust doesn't really fit the AFV hull, so you can live with the kit part or swipe one from the Dragon Pacific Theater M4A2 kit, which includes an unneeded M4A3 tail plate. Gerald Owens