Hi guys,

was on Hobby Link Japan homepage recently and found under new releases a M109 A6 Paladin from Tamiya. Quite excited I read further and found out that it`s "only" a rebox of Italeris M109 A6 kit. But it will contain a Tamiya crew and some luggage. Maybe the crew and gear are worth by the kit anyway.
Any further informations/pictures are highly appreciated.

Hans-Hermann

Just how poor is the Italeris M109 A6 kit?

Joel

http://www.hlj.com/scripts/hljlist?rel=nav&GenreCode=Mil&MacroType=MilVeh&DisplayMode=images&Dis=2&Sort=std&qid=CQ63DMO45YA&set=1&Maker2=TAM

Bad details, bad fit, bad road wheels, bad tracks.

Been a long time since I chimed in (always reading but not adding my 2 cents) yet, I feel a stirring. Reboxing of old kits is fine but not with todays pricing.
The adding of a bit and bob isn't providing the modelling public with anything we need at a current standard of pricing. I am stating that supplying us with a 1970's era mold with a 2012 price is iiratating and downright lazy. Have the manufacturers not recouped the price of thier molds already? Purchasing someone elses molds isn't research and developement. It certainly isn't listening to the molding society about our desires.
With new hungry and aggressive model companys producing incredible kits, almost monthly, why purchase these antiquated kits? An Opel Blitz, that cost $19.99 in 1995, or a Skoda 35T, that cost $25 from one company raised to $50 from another, with no improvement, is ridiculous.
I believe we are living in one of the most exciting eras of modelling times. I am astounded everyday but the overflow of development and production of new kits and aftermarket kits yet, I work too damn hard to just throw my money at something so uninspired.
Sorry. Just my peanuts from the gallery. Cheers

Tamiya and Italeri themselves are trotting out the M109. To get onto people's stashes before the Kinetic and Riich Models new tooled kits. Can't blame them but informed buyers should probably go with either the Kinetic or Riich kits, I would guess.

... or AFV Club...

Cheers,
/E

The Riich model has been announced for a while, I wish they would release one of the kits they said was coming.

There is a pic on the Tamiya site. Looks like the same 'ol tired Italeri kit with some additional parts

Riich Models said on their Facebook page the plan is to have the M109A6 and Maxxpro out by the end of the year

Good news. The Riich one looks great. I can't wait for it to come out.

On the "Tamiya" model, it is just another rehash. It is just the Italeri kit with the accessory sprue from the M2A2 ODS Bradley kit. Really Tamiya, can't you do better?

Just watched a video from the All Japan Model show via HLJ hompage. ASccording to the comment, Italeri did some im-
provements (roadwheels) on the kit while Tamiya provides new figures and stowage. Also could the new M1 A2 TUSK kit be seen.
Sadly there is still the old stiff vinyl track included. Anyone interested can check it at www.hlj.com.

Hans-Hermann

Looked at the Tamiya Abrams Tusk and still no correction to the drive sprockets, i.e. the lightening holes aren't present. Now, I know all about the Trumpeter switch but just can't see myself scrapping a whole kit just to get the sprockets. That would have been nice to see retooled. Would it have been that hard? Maybe but, take a page from trumpeter and thier 1/32 wildcat, Tamiya. Thier model was wrong, so they retooled it all! Would a small sprue of corrected sprockets been all that wrong to wish for? I am going to purchase this one because buying a Dragon M1 Aim or Sep(if ya can find one) and the Legend, or other aftermarket Tusk would be cost prohibitive. I am still ever so happy with our current modelling universe but, I hate seeing the "hero" of my modelling childhood being lazy.

Not defending Tamiya, but is it that hard to drill the holes yourself? No, I have done it a few times. Basic modeling skills. We are getting too spoiled by uber-detailed kits and forgetting how to actually modify/update/correct issues ourselves.




Yup, sounds like a few "new" parts at premium prices. Its still a '70s tooled kit with bad fit and poor details. The "new" figures and gear are from the M2A2 ODS Bradley kit as well. I'll be waiting for the Riich Models Paladin myself.

After seeing the images from HLJ page, Tamiya could definitly do a better job. Why doing water can for the turret when there is a NBC decon container? Also an up-to-date .50 cal m.g., the drivers instrument panel or the PLGR antenna would be better.

Hans-Hermann

Bought this kit a month ago and just started builing it 04/26/2013. IT IS ALL ITALERI, just in a Tamiya box. The extra sprues aren't really worth it, unless one is desperate for a couple of ammo boxes, ruck sacks, two figures and small misc. stuff. I was sorely disappointed with Tamiya and this kit. Mediocre fitment, some flash, LOTS of ejector pins and sink marks all over. And they used the same Italeri instructions, save for changing the paint numbers to Tamiya.
But the accessories sprues by Tamiya are top notch.

Yup, basically what was said last October when this thread was fresh. You would have known all about it if you had read this first.

Hello James. First of all - welcome to the site.

I have not built the Tamiya kit, so I can't speak to its quality as far as flash and sinkholes. I have however, built several of the Italeri kits produced from those same molds. I did not experience those problems with any of them. I don't find too many egregious errors in the kit. Most are minor, and save for the fact that there are no undercuts in the road wheels, it's pretty darned accurate. Yes, I'll get one of the newer offerings soon, and of another kit coming after that.
But since you weren't a member of the site until two days ago, and already have the Tamiya kit, here's a link to the thread where I explain most of the changes that need to be made.

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/129179&page=1&ord=1

Most of the photos are still there as well. Also, there are a few photos in my gallery here (which I no longer use) as well as some interior shots. Bear in mind that no aftermarket was required for any of these builds, except for the PE stowage tie downs. If you correct some of the detail aspects, you'll still get a fine kit out of it. For me, it's not the quality of the kit so much as how much time it's worth to you to put into it.
There was a thread on another site several months ago where a guy had done a Paladin. It was very pretty and everyone (but me) raved about it. It had oil coming up from underneath the battery box hatches, and rust on aluminum pieces where no rust would be. I'd much rather see a more realistic finish that wasn't as pretty, or a good kit brought up to great standards. You can do that with the Tamiya kit.

By the way, some threads attract my interest more than others. I happen to have chiefed M109s in my younger days prior to becoming a door kicker again, so pardon me if I ramble...

Italeri kits are only reasonably accurate for M109 / M109A1, although their details are very crude by today's standards. They were already a let down when they were first released, as they came after much better detailed M47 and Leopard 1A4 from Italeri. All the other variants released by Italeri, including M109A6 Paladin, reboxed by Tamiya now, had a lot of hull details wrong, because they were only suitable for M109/M109A1, but not for later versions. Also howitzer barrel details were wrong, because Italeri missed some subtle changes required for accurate M284. But you already know all this Rob, judging from your other posts, so I'm a bit surprised that you would call these kits "pretty darn accurate", particularly that this discussion is specifically about the Paladin.
And I have to agree with James that molding quality of Italeri M109 kits is not very good - maybe you were lucky to get better samples. All my Italeri M108/M109 kits suffer from some amount of flash and sink marks, but the Paladin is the worst of them all with some nasty sink marks on turret parts.

I strongly suggest you try AFV Club M109A2 (and avoid Kinetic one at all cost!!!) - it is a true masterpiece! Comparing the Italeri kit to it would be like comparing Fred Flintstone's car to a new BMW. The only "flaw" in my opinion is that it has been molded stricly as A2 variant, without any optional parts and with some A2 specific details molded on. So releasing an accurate M109 or M109A1 would require quite a lot of new tooling for AFV Club...

By the way, I wonder if AFV Club would capture all the small details they need to change from their M109A2 kit parts to make a trully accurate A6, like new wheel hubs, new grenade box on the rear hull, new telephone box, new fume extractor, new gun tube (with dual grooves for M284, as the one in A2 kit has a single groove correct for M185) and reinforced muzzle brake.

I'm currently in the process of building a (reasonably) accurate M108 using parts from Italeri, Kinetic and AFV Club kits (and a lot of scratchbuilding), so I know each of them very well. I used Kinetic kit parts only because I had started my project before the AFV Club kit was released and because they are a little bit more detailed than Italeri ones in some areas. Now I regret - I should have waited for the AFV Club kit and save myself a lot of trouble... So now I have a true Franken-kit : Kinetic hull and suspension (with a lot of scratchbuild details and modifications), Skybow/AFV Club tracks, Italeri turret shell (as the Kinetic one has wrong shape), some M108 specific parts from the Italeri kit and various details from AFV Club kit and some also from Kinetic one. I wish I could use more from the AFV Club kit, but my plan is to use most of it to build a better Paladin using the Italeri turret and as much as possible from AFV Club M109A2. I also plan to get AFV Club Paladin once it's out, but I already have a lot of aftermarket for the Italeri one, so decided to build it anyway, but replace as much as possible with AFV Club parts from their M109A2.

Well you caught me there. I guess my definition of "pretty darned accurate" might differ from someone else's. The shape is correct, the dimensions are correct. It's the details that are off, which to me wasn't "egregious" enough. Correcting them just insured I got my money's worth with the kit.
And you're right about the barrel being different. In fact, I pointed it out to you! But as you can see in the link below, I did not notice the difference in the tracks.
Here's a much older post where I point out other errors that I did not bother to write in the above post. Unfortunately most of the photos have disappeared.
I built one of these for a Captain at Ft. Carson several years ago who was leaving. (It's one of the few I've ever done completely free of charge, but hey, he was a brother, you know?) At any rate, even without correcting anything but the removal of the flotation gear shroud and the stowage box arrangement in the rear, he thought the thing looked "like you had a miniaturization gun." He was clearly not a modeler like we are, but I bet he still looks at it and thinks that. Unless of course is cat has knocked it off the shelf since then...

Oh, forgot to post the link!

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/51756

Indeed you did! I have forgotten about that old thread. By the way, recently I did some additional research and I finally spotted a difference between the reinforced muzzle brake as used with M284 and the earlier casting used on M185... There were actually two different muzzle brakes used with M185 (both options included in Kinetic M109A2 kit) and the later one was visually almost identical to the reinforced one used with M284, so it is not easy to see the difference, but I now see it (while early and late M185 muzzle brakes had different shape around the front baffle, the difference between late M185 brake and M284 brake is around the rear baffle!), although it is hard to notice in most pictures... Unfortunately no one currently makes correct M284 muzzle brake - I wonder if AFV Club will do it right?...
I also noticed on some photos that the very early Paladins used the old style fume extractors. But the majority of them have the newer type. So Italeri/Tamiya kit fume extractor is not entirely wrong - but correct only for an early Paladin.

Pawel

My crystal ball tells me they have the right references.

I have a post from Apr.22 on here.Tusk/Paladin.Has some pics and my opinion of the kit.Pretty simple build,not worth what I payed for it.

Tom

Has anyone heard anything further regarding the M109A6 from Riich?

No news. BUT I wouldn't fret because AFV Club's M109A6 should be released by the end of the month, and should be as good if not better than anything that Riich ever plans on releasing.

copied from pmms