I bought this kit about a year ago. After doing a bit of asking around on here, I realize that the better option is the AFV club kit.

Is the italeri kit just a dog? Can a track upgrade help it out? Or is it beyond that? Should I just bite the bullet and buy the AFV club kit?

To each their own and I definitely don't want to discourage modelers from building their stash, especially those with the skills and patience to rework kits into their own masterpieces, but the AFV club Paladin is just hands down a better kit. Better plastic, better details, more accurate, you name it.

Look, here -
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/129179&page=1&ord=1

James - Matt, thank you fellas. I guess this italeri kit will stay in the stash forever. Lol

Why not sell it cheap and buy some accessories for the AFV Club kit?

The Italeri M109A6 can be made into a very nice looking model. Before the AFV Club kit came out, it was a great kit. With a little work, it can become a masterpiece. Out of the box, it will build into a decent representation of an M109A6 Paladin. It just depends on how detailed you want the kit to be and how much work you want to put into it. It is definitely not a dog that should be relegated to the trash.

Matt- I've tried to sell/trade it a few times.

Gino- That's kind of the info I'm after. I read the thread that Matt shared. I'm not really after super detailing, but something that looks the part with minimal work. I don't mind a track swap at all, but is it more involved than that? Would it be simpler just to buy the AFV club kit? That the questions I'm asking I guess, because my scratch building skills are zero, I have nothing to scratch build with either.

The track swap would improve it. To be really accurate, you want the Riich Model T154 tracks. AFV Club's are the older T136 tracks used on M108-M109A5s.

Some of the other small corrections such as adding a plate to the top of the driver's hatch, cutting the lip off the vent on the front left of the turret, removing the water flotation cover on the top of the hull (or at least leaving off the blocks on the ends and shaving the ends down), cutting the flotation lugs off the front of the hull, adding no slip w/Rustoleum textured spray, etc., etc... Like I said, it depends on how much you want to do.

Thank you very much, Gino. I'll gather some much needed research if I decide to use this kit.

Gino, why are some of these "boxes?" Extended towards the back, and in the italeri kit they are on the side? What's the difference here?

Also, does anybody make the M992A2?

The stowage baskets on the back are hinged and designed to fold back to make the vehicle narrower for rail transport or on narrow roads in Europe. Italeri's (and AFV Club's) can be built in either position.

Unfortunately, there is no kit of the M992. A few manufacturers have announced them (Riich, AFV Club, and Kinetic). Hopefully one will be available in the near future, but who knows. I scratched one a while ago.

Ah ok. That makes sense. Thank you Gino.

About the M992, with seeing the new shots with trumpeter making the MLRS and the M4C2V, perhaps we could see the M992. Perhaps.

I've built the italeri M109A6 and had to do some scratch building to make it accurate. I also scratch built the M992A2 to go behind it. I think, I could be wrong but, there was a M992A2 Conversion for the italeri kit many years ago! You would be hard pressed to find it and I don't even remember the manufacturer.

Hi, Dustin!

Ya never know- Gino has just recently started a great conversion, and wouldn't ya know it? Now TRUMPY has announced an M1120, coming "soon". Also see Hisham's post, regarding the M1120... I'm getting to the point of not even wanting to start any more new conversions, kit-bashes, or scratch-builds, for fear of wasting my time and effort, what with all of these new kits that are seemingly coming out every 5 minutes, or so...

All kidding aside, you sound like the kind of guy that WOULD put in an extra effort to bring that ITALERI kit up to the latest "standards"- Look what Mike 165thspc did with his ITALERI HEMTT kit! You supplied a whole boat-load of info for that build, along with several other very accomplished modellers that "hang around" on this site. I AGREE with Gino- Give your ITALERI kit a shot. With the money that you save by not buying the AFV Palladin, you can buy some pretty nice "upgrades", Tracks and PE sets- Your choice, of course...

Dennis,
I seen both posts by Gino and Hisham.

I really admire Michael and Gino's ability to scratch build. It's something to watch unfold for sure. With me just beginning to model, I feel like tackling something like that is way away for me. But, you guys are probably correct. I could try to do some minor corrections and with a PE set and tracks it probably would look good.

I've been thinking about it, since I'm in it pretty cheap, I should try it. It could be a good learning experience for me. It'll give me a good opportunity to try some more advanced PE. I've also been wanting to try my hand at the NATO three tone camo scheme on something, before I go off and ruin a paint job on those nice Dragon Abrams.

So, yes, I think I will give it a go.

Thank you all