How good are these kits, in terms of ease of assembly and fit? I've heard a lot about these kits' accuracy problems - particularly the Merkava - but almost nothing on ease of assembly, which I care more about. What do you guys think about this?

Hi.. Built Academy's M-51 Super Sherman this past year and I thought it was real nice. Had no fit problems with it at all. Accuracy-wise I couldn't say for sure just how 'accurte' it is compared to the real thing--what model is totally accurate anyway?--but I liked the way it turned out. Put some extra bedrolls I made out of tissue and white glue on the back of the turret, and some .015" or .020" wire for the antennas and it looks pretty nice to me.

Take care, sgirty

I built the M-51 a few years ago and I had fit problems with the turret, gun, mantlet, and muzzel brake. The hull itself went together allright for me. It is not accurate but you would need someone far more knowledgable than I to tell you what to fix.

Mark

Both kits build up into nice representations of what they're supposed to. Thaats my answer out of the box. IF your looking for a more detailed build check out My sherman reference page on my site: www.homestead.com/shiryon/index.html . Yoube able to find infor mation and articles concerning building the M51 for a number of different eras. Each had its own minor differences. there was a group build earlier this year of the M50/51 on the group build site, so you can check there as well.

As to the Merkava 3 you can take the same route only most of the discussion was don in chat on sundays. you can however post any questions you have here or at the IDF forum on yahoo. the kit as is represents what I'll call an initial production unit for field testing. there are better turrets out there which are listed on teh Merkava page on my site. just keep in mind any thing more than that will entail some major revisions of the kit.

SHiryon

I built the M51 and thought it was a pretty good kit.

Thanks guys! Looks like I'm going to be getting myself 2 new x-mas presents! #:-)