I recently acquired this kit from a German Hobby store for 6Euro, couldn't pass it up and thought it made an interesting topic since my new job at DoD is Casualty Management. One of our teams uses the M102 for funeral honors and burial ceremonies. This is my first piece of arty and my terms are incorrect so .....When I opened the box I was amazed to see that many parts for a small subject (go AFV Club!)

2 sprues in green plastic
1 bag with aluminum barrel, 4 coiled springs, and two rubber tires.
1 set of instructions

Here it is, all feedback/tips/corrections welcome!!








I forgot to take a picture of the small bag with extras in it, but you can see the barrel in the other pictures

I started with sub assemblies A B and C. These small parts were surprisingly easy to clean up and I had no fit issues with them, however if I was to do it again I would clean the sink marks in sub A before I put the two parts together. In part C for the tow ring, a quick swipe of the blade got rid of the mold lines.







at this point I completed most of the frame, the fit was excellent, however if you are not careful, the axle can get caught up and you lose the "moving part" capabilty to lift the tires for the firing position, which I planned to use anyways.



I added the top plate to the frame and again fit was excellent. This part is very thin and fragile and I would recommend extra care when cleaning up the flash.



I added the rotating plate to the frame. It had a bit of flash and a couple of sink marks, with some sanding paper the easily came off



This piece was easy to get in place, but if I was to do it again I would do clean up before I added the part, it consists of two halves and has some serious flash when you put them together. I ended up cutting the piece back off later in the build and using a small sanding stick, I removed the
flash




At this point I added the extension arms, these two pieces had no flash on them and clean up of sprue marks was very easy. They too are moving parts I was sure to put light cement around the areas where they connected to axle that lets them move.




There is a small photo etch part here that i added for cosmetic reasons.


At this point I began construction on the actual barrell housing group ( )



These three parts are made up of about 13 pieces. After looking at some reference photos I decided that once they were all put together i would go back and add small details lost in production.






I completed the barrell assembly, I was caught up in construction I didnt even think to take pictures of parts but there are roughly 16 pieces here. Again once this subassembly is complete I will go back and add spare etch parts and small details too small to be produced for OOB



I lost one of the handles to the carpet monster, thankfully I had a spare from an old Tamiya kit I had lying around, the part is a but smaller than this, but I figured what the heck.



another angle





Again AFV Club makes perfect fit assemblies, the barrell assembly slid right in to this piece, no glue or sanding was needed.



I will add the details once all parts are added.


Here I added the swing arms the the cannon assembly, again using no glue to attach the arms so they can be positioned








thats it for now, but more to come

Nice build.

Should be areal winner when done.

You got a good deal on it I think I paid like $30.00 or something.

Just never got into it as compared to AFV's M-115 and Long Tom.

Great work so far.

The AFV Club M102 is a great kit. I have built one as a 82nd ABN piece in NATO camo with the jump bar on it. I have another and may do it as a Vietnam piece. Looking good. Any updates.

You certainly got a great deal on oit, and the kit is a true masterpiece. I remember reading a review where the author stated that the springs needed to be cut down, but I did not find that to be the case. I cut my teeth on the M102 before moving up to the M198 and M109 series. My only nitpick with the kit is that it could have come with stakes, or at least the stake heads. The baseplate needs at least two stakes in it within the two minutes that the entire gun should be placed in action. If you plan a dio for it, let me know-there are a lot of other tiny details that'll make it right.

I actually haven't decided as to what I am doing. Since I got moved to the Casualty Management division in DoD, I wanted to make one that I saw at arlington, it was painted in a gloss black and used for funeral honors, I can't however find a picture and I am now back in Germany. If it doesn't work out that way I was hoping to make a dio with Marines in it, Vietnam era, so any details you got are helpful, the model is just sitting there primed....no color.