I managed to finish something: M108 self propelled howitzer build from parts from three kits: Italeri M108, Kinetic M109A2 and AFV Club M109A2. The only reason I used Kinetic parts was that I started this project before the AFV Club kit was released, so I only used some detail parts from it. No more Kinetic M109s for me, thank you...








More photos: http://vodnik.republika.pl/pages/m108/m108.htm

Looks great! Nice color. A plastic one is one the near horizon as well.

Great job on it. It came out very nice.

Excellent build. Thanks for the pics.

Very, very nice

Excellent job Pawel! The painting of the various accessories is stunning, they do look real.

Thanks also for sharing your experience with Kinetic. Could you please just tell us a bit more about your discontent?

Olivier

Hi Pawel,

Awesome job man, this is a pleasure to look at all the way! Great work on the weathering and all small details!

Ivan

its's hard to believe this is a model!
very realistic painting and weathering indeed!

best regards,

Mark

Nice touch with the weathering and nicely understated. The details are over the top nice. Very very realistic. Brings back memories for sure.
J

Awesome! The M2 .50 cal. looks real.

Thanks a lot for all the feedback!




Well... Where to start... Maybe from the bottom up:

1. Tracks are reasonably detailed, but end connector fit to pins on track links is very loose. They just don't stay on pins at all. You have to glue each connector to link immediately, what makes assembly very difficult. I gave up after only a couple of links and switched to the old Skybow tracks which are slightly better detailed and assemble nicely (the fit is just right and clever placement of connectors on sprue runners allows for using them as assembly jigs - not possible with Kinetic tracks ).
NOTE: I tried to use a set of "individual links" sold by Kinetic separately, but they are exactly the same sprues with link and length tracks as those included in the kit, you just get more sprues, thus more indi-links, so "length" sections are not used. Using length and link tracks in the kit is probably slightly easier, as there is less connectors to attach.

2. Road wheels are nicely designed with proper "undercut" around the rim, but wheel hubs are very bare - no bolts and no lubricating points on them! Sprockets are so-so - bolt details are not convincing and the teeth shape is not quite correct.

3. Generally suspension is quite good - certainly better than Italeri, but the fit of parts is again quite loose - I had to use CA glue to lock suspension arms in proper positions.

4. The shape of the hull nose is wrong - it is too curved. Should be more pointy. It is not an issue when you build M109A2 out of the box, as the gun travel lock hides this flaw, but I had to reshape the "nose" to get more correct shape in my M108.

5. Details on the hull are reasonably accurate and better than in Italeri kit, but are quite soft and poorly defined. There are some small mistakes (e.g. the location of the small grille behind the driver's hatch is wrong - I had to move it, to properly fit with the scratch built swim barrier "boomerang" cover). One of the engine covers is missing one of its hinges (molding flaw) - it looks like a lot of these kits were manufactured with this flaw: I was able to check a number of kits and all were missing this hinge. I used the Kinetic kit hull, but with many detail improvements and corrections.

6. The shape of the turret shell is not correct. The curvature at the front of the turret is wrong. It is not very visible, until you compare it with the Italeri or AFV Club turrets, or some good photos or drawings. I used modified Italeri turret in my model (as the AFV Club kit was not yet available at the time).

7. The tools and other details on the turret are a joke. Weird shapes, awful details and poor molding... I replaced most of them with better items from other kits or scratch built. Luckily by the time I reached this point of my project, the AFV Club kit was released and I was able to use many small parts from it (like bustle racks, grenade boxes, the M2 tripod etc.). The M2HB in my model is from Tasca.

8. Generally the molding quality of the Kinetic M109A2 resembles old Lee kits, or very early Trumpeter ones, i.e. is rather poor.

9. The Kinetic kit is a mixture of M109A2 and M109A3 features, i.e. some included details (bolts on hull sides for example) are only correct for M109A3 converted from earlier M109/M109A1, but not correct for the M109A2.

The end result is that my model (excluding tracks and scratch built parts) is 60% Kinetic, 30% Italeri and 10% AFV Club, but if I were to build it today, it would be 85% AFV Club and 15% Italeri (M108 specific parts only)...

Thank you for the comprehensive answer

Olivier

Very nice job! I too plan on back dating the same kits or two of them anyways to build my M-109 from back in the day.
Chilihead

Nice job! So Pawel you would say the Kinetic kit is one to avoid then?

Excellent work! I'll keep my distance, from Kinetic's kit. The tools are near perfect! I am currently practicing my tool weathering. I always seem to get too much of one pigment and not enough of the other.

That is a nice freaking model!

superb work mate, looks fantastic, you can't even tell that the kinetic gave you any issues, everything looks really good!