Cost being equal, which M-18 do you think is best, the AFV Club or the Academy.
Got some Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket!
Thanks

I built the Academy kit and it was a joy to build. Made the mistake of buying the Eduard PE kit for it. If I could do it over again I'ld go straight OOB. AFV stuff from my experience is also quite good. Just finished their M-88. Flip a coin if the price is close otherwise go with the cheapest.

I have the AFV M-18 and it lloks good in the box You get a turned metal barrel, "rubber band" tracks and a fairly detailed interior. But unfortunately while you can model the kit with the driver and co-drivers hatches open there are no drivers controls, you do get the seats, transmission and an instrument panel for the driver though. If Academy's M-18 is anything like their M-10 series I would buy the Academy for the better more complete interior.

JMHT

Darryl

I've seen a comparison between the 2 online some were and it stated the afv one was a bit toy like seemed to think the academy one was much better thing is you always get a close run between these two companies

Hmmm... MikeLi125 I seem to remember the oposite, that the AFV was the better of the two. I saw it at either missing lynx or track lynx but I can't access either right now. I'll look for the reviews.

I built the Academy one and I am very happy with it. It has very good detail. I built it OOB.

The decider seems to be the internal detail although personally the detail seems to be finer (as a general rule) with AFV Club. Personally, I would go for the Academy one.....Jim

why, is it not very good,

ive got my eye on one one ebay

cheers

joe

I had both, but only built the AFV Club one. It had better dimensions and the reaer grill work had the correct pattern. I found it easier to correct the mistakes on the AFV Club M18, than on the Acadamy one.

Mike

HyperScale's Tank Talk forum had this comment by a fairly respected armor modeler, Jay "Todtjager" Barbarisch:


The actual discussion was mid December and here is the link to the parent thread. I don't know much about the Hellcat and own the Academy kit myself. Haven't even cracked the wrap on the kit, so I do not have any opinion one way or the other. Listening to the builders on HS makes me wonder. Oh well, I build to have fun and not count rivets.
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=203983;article=13870;search_term=m-18;show_parent=1

I'll offer a thought or two, too:

I have them both, but chose to build the AFV Club version. The Academy version comes in handy for supplying missing components in the Driver's Compartment - not provided in the AFV Club kit.

I went with the AFV Club kit because of viewing and climbing all over one in the MVTF collection here in the Bay Area. The Academy kit is oversized in places (indeed likely because the prototype vehicle used for measurements was missing its engine and it sat higher off the ground) and the AFV Club kit is a bit undersized in some dimensions.

These discrepancies are +/- 2mm - Steel Masters out of France did a nice and simple comparison between the two kits. If you're going to lose sleep over a maximum of 2mm - I can't help you there.

I found it easier to "build-up" the undersized AFV Club kit and raise the stance of the model some 1mm than to "cut-down" the Academy kit and correct the rear end.

When finished, I felt the AFV Club kit captures the look and stance of the real HellCat I got to look over and climb on better than the Academy kit. Just my thoughts on the two. Both are nice kits, and if you want a lot of extra plastic goodies - then the Academy kit is more attractive.

Now that I'm about halfway through converting the M18 to the M39 AUV - I'm still happy I chose to work with the AFV Club kit...

Gunnie