Hi. At the hobby store yesterday getting some brush cleaner and happened upon Academy's M-51 Super Sherman kit that happened to be on sale. Don't usually find the post W.W.II era that interesting, but that big 105 sticking out of the Sherman just screamed "mean". So I got it.

Been looking around the Net for some info. on this model and building it and have found a few things here and there. I take it to be that this kit is kind of one of the older kits out there, but it still looks pretty nice. I know that Dragon had a kit of this out several years ago, but that one has long since been gone off the shelves.

So I was just wondering if anybody out there has built this kit and how do you like it? I noticed that Edward has a P.E. set for it, but that's been about all I can find for the Academy kit.

Found some photos of some M-51 models on an IDF armor site, so this gave me some ideas for some certain things that I mad notes on in the instructions.

But I was just wondering what others have generally thought about this kit.

Thanks in advance and take care, sgirty

I've built the suspension for this kit (HVSS) and the worst part of that is the individual guide pins. Time consuming but not bad. This is the only "one stop" kit for this tank, the only other option being an M4A1 (Italerie or DML with cast hull) minimum $15, DML HVSS suspension (sometimes hard to find) about $10 and Verlinden conversion set, (which may be out of production) at least $15. (That's how I did mine before the DML kit came out.) The DML model itself is no more than 10 years old, maybe newer.

The kit is not that old, less than six years old. Both it and the DML M-51 kit hit the market in 1997 (DML was first). There were pluses and minuses for each kit (over-engineered DML HVSS vs. Academy vinyl tracks; extra M50 turret in DML box). I think the Academy kit got glossed over because they still had a reputation as the Tamiya-copier and DML had established a reputation for some highly detailed kits. This type of thing happens when two companies release similar subjects at the same time.

Here is a review of the DML M-51.

And here are some tips when dealing with the Academy M51.

Very cool version of the post war Sherman.