months without a post. Let's roll with something new. Thursday I received a couple of boxes (two actually...) of the newest PSC cold war tank the M60A3. 5 tank per box, at around 21£, 20£ from Caliver Books.
Now, I love the Patton, and I could not resist assembling a couple as soon as possible. So I took cutters and glue... and here is the result:
15mm, plastic, it looks a little neat kit. I am pleased with the results but...
well before rambling and ranting let me discuss the positive elements of the kit. Beside the price, that is not bad at all, the shape of the tank is well rendered. The turret basked is both well done and sufficiently fine, but also easy to build and sturdy. The canvas cover over the mantlet is well done, looking suitably canvas. The MG turret/cupola is also quite nice. The two turret hatches are clean and easily to position, either open or closed. I also like the two crewmen. Overall build was quite easy and pleasant, with pieces fitting well. For 4£ at tank this is a good model no ifs or buts.
One the other side of the coin... well there are some issues. Minor issues I would say, at least the majority. First of all there are no aligning marks on the two halves of the hull or the turret, it is not impossible to line them properly (the turret especially), but you need to be careful. I found that gluing the rear grill to the upper part of the hull before putting the bottom hull into position is helpful (changing the order from the instruction sheet). More annoying is the fact that the instructions place the smoke dischargers in a completely wrong position, both on the specific panel and one overall render. The box art has them in the proper position... my suggestion is double check pictures of the real tank. The dischargers were the most annoying thing in my first build. I had to scrounge the shelves for pictures. Also they are a bit crude and badly angled.
Another issue is the barrel, while the fume extractor and the thermal sleeve are well done, the muzzle is not. There is no ringed brake on the the real thing.
Look at this picture of a Taiwanese (ROC) M60A3 TTS:
The final issue is the fact that you can build only an M60A3 TTS from the box. There is no searchlight for a vanilla A3 or the non sleeved barrel of the A1. Used to the panoply of options from PSC this is a let down. It also means you cannot do an Israeli A1 for the October War... of course I would have also loved an original round turret (for IDF tanks) or an A2 one... but these were fancy things, the missing barrel and searchlight were minor addition, not even taking too much space on the sprue, that would have increased the value of the kit.
In summary it is a good model, well priced, but is just an A3 TTS and has a couple of mistakes.
Stay tuned for painted beasts!
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