OK, gals and boys, I had so much fun wiht my three jeeps build that it’s now time for something completely different:



Now this is silly. But(t), I’ve always been a fan of the Chaffee and have probably built every existing model of it in any scale at least once somewhere along the line – except the latest Bronco and AFV Club renditions. The only two survivors are the old Italeri one, remodelled at least once:


(that was before my weathering days...)

And the other one was actually one of my first projects here on Armorama, a Korean War Dio with – guess what?!? An Italeri Chaffee...




So now, it’s time for some serious Chaffee business. Those of you who think this blog has something to do with chafing, you can find some information on the Chaffee here, on Wikipedia.

As with my Jeep build log, I’ll be building three kits from different manufacturers in parallel and comparing the different sub-assemblies. Hopefully by the end I’ll be able to give you some idea on which one would bet he best for you. The three contestants are as follows:

Mr. Bronco’s Korean War Chaffee


Reviewed here.

Here’s what the box looks like when opened:


For Sprue shots check out the review.

Mr. AFV Club’s Norwegian NM-116:


They have included this young militaristic lady on (and in) the box, however, I find the proportions around the hip somehow disturbing... Am I the only one?!


There hasn’t been a review on this one on Kitmaker yet, so I’ll spend some time with the contents:



















As you can see there are quite a few parts in this one. All parts fort he basic Chaffee (except the gun) seem to be included, add to that the parts needed fort he modification into the Norwegian NM-116, which was an update performed during the cold war to increase the Chaffee’s firepower and improve the power pack.

I’m planning to build this one as the NM-116, but I will be able to compare the original Chaffee parts during the build. But most of it is still standard chaffe anyway, except the gun, engine deck and some details.

And the last one, well, somethin’s stupid (no, not Frankie and Nancy Sinatra ). It probably doesn’t make sense to build the Italeri kit anymore today, but since I have all kinds of update parts for it, collected before the new kits got out, I figured it would be a good idea to just build it, have fun with it and at the same time we can see the leaps and bounds molding tech has taken since the 1980ies. Or can’t we? Wes hall see...


Here’s what’s inside:


T-72 tracks by Armor Track Models:


I’m not aware that this company is still in business, however, the set contains some really nice resin drive sprockets and idles, as well as the single link styrene tracks.

Two sets of Verlinden updates, one for details, one for stowage. These are real old sets and as you can see above, I’ve used some of the stowage on my old Chaffee build.


Then we have a nice Blast models stowage set that I picked up on a business trip to the blast models store in Paris some (at least 5) years ago.


Then there’s an RB models barrel, reviewed here.


And finally, a Bronco Chaffee Turret. Wait. A Bronco Chaffee Turret?!? Yes!! Well.
Yes. When I ordered the original WWII Chaffee release from Bronco, I also got the replacement turret for a few cents, just in case I had one of the original kits. Well’, it turned out that it wasn’t needed so I will try to incorporate it here. In general, I will try to use as mayn leftovers from the other two kits here as I can, just for fun and training my build skills.


I’ll spare you the sprue shots of the Italeri kit, you can look them up here.

Ah, and finally, some reference material:





Wow... So much space just to set the stage...

Let’s get going, shall we? Well, okay. Tomorrow we’ll get to the first update on the running gear. Unfortunately wifey needs the computer for now.
:D

Seems like you've got a massive project ahead of you! Thanks for taking the time and effort to share this with us, I look forward to the builds and paintings! Happy modelling and Happy Holidays!

-Alan

Can you post a pic of the "Valkerie" included in the AFV Norwegian Chaffee? Is the fig resin or styrene? Might be interesting to get that version for the figure. OK, so I'm a dirty old man!

I'll be following along as I have the both the AFV and Bronco kits.
Have fun!
Dan

Well, you dirty old man... I may have misled you there, I meant it's included as a poster, not a figure.

Dan and Alan, good to have you along this bumpy ride...

So, 'puter's back in my control, let's see if I can get those first pics up.

Ratz! . Just as well. I've already got a Bronco Chaffee.

Small world I have the same 3 kits and the same reference books. I just built an Italeri Chaffee as a test. What after market tracks did you get? My Italeri steel tracks fell apart after I primed them black. The paint must have been to aggressive. I will be following along.

Tom

Hello Stefan,

I hope you Italeri Chaffee doesn't have a challenge like this......



The kit had a very large molding void on the driver's side of the hull. This made it very challenging to mate the upper and lower hulls together. It was difficult to get the shapes to match up.

Anyways, it's gone now. Destroyed in a move many moons ago. It was one of my earlier kits.

Best of luck with the builds.

See ya in the funnies.............

Formations made (past tense!) a resin upgrade kit for this which just about replaced EVERYTHING! Pretty pointless now.

Yeah, I never liked the old Italeri rubber band tracks, way too stiff...

I'm using the armor track models single link styrene tracks. We^ll see how those turn out.

Bryan, that looks like a massive molding "challenge" right there... Italeri always had some molding issues...

Yeah, the Formations update was massive. Like getting a new kit... I think the only thing left was the lower hull... Check it out here, just for a blast from the past...

Ready with a first update in a few minutes, stay tuned...

Let’s get this show on the road.

First let’s have a look at the hulls. Basic layout is the same with all, a tub including the sides, some underside detail and the attachment points for the wheels. The only difference is that Italeri included the full front armor plate in this same part, which makes it less prone to warping, but compromises on the details. AFV Club chose a compromise, as they only included the center portion of the front armor. Both AFV Club and Bronco include the weld seam along the edges of the drive sprocket casting on the front armor plate. Underside detail is similar on all three, with AFV Club’s closest to the real thing. Dimensionally all are very similar, however, Italeri has the attachments for the road wheel arms more to the front.







Coming to the drive sprocket attachments, you can see a noticeable size difference between Italeri and the other two. Detail wise, Bronco is the most accurate with the correct number of ribs and the fines details.



AFV Club has some nice cast parts with the screw holes, which would make it possible to show a vehicle in repair with the sprocket removed if – and that’s a big if – you had a transmission to put in it. Nice detail though.



Both AFV Club and Bronco give you a full set of torsion bars which are supposed to make the suspension workable to a degree. Bronco also gives you the covers for them. I couldn’t judge whether one of either is accurate, as these would be covered by the fighting compartment floor and are not seen in any of my references. At this stage I also included the front armor plate. Here Bronco offers both the early and late version (with the pontoon attachments). For the Korean War version, the pontoon attachments were more common, even though “early” and “late” is almost a misnomer as all Chaffees were manufactured around the end of WWII in a relatively short time. For Bronco, you can add the casting numbers from PE, a very fiddly task. It seems the numbers are a bit large as I found it hard to fit the required three separate lines. This, and the fact that there are not enough zeros provided (the kit includes 4, but 6 are required), made me leave it at 2 lines.




At this point in time I decided to saw off the front armor of the Italeri Chaffee and replace it with the leftover Bronco part. Some putty, sanding, swearing, more putty, more sanding and it turned out quite acceptable to my eyes. I decided to skip all the little detail, as little of it will be seen once the sprocket, tracks and weathering will be added (or I hope so…). I added the towing hooks leftover from another AFV Club kit, so here’s a combination from all three manufacturers…





Coming to the suspension proper then. The shock absorbers are made up of one part with Italeri and Bronco, while AFV Club give us two separate parts, which makes a more accurate detail. Note that Italeri has part of the absorbers molded onto the side of the hull, so in the end all three manufacturers have more or less the same depth.



The idler wheel arm assembly shows the different concepts of the manufacturers. In the old days, Italeri made this in two parts, the arms and the shock absorber. A not very detailed but sturdy assembly. Bronco has 8 parts, including two very small bolts to attach the shock absorbers, which are made of two plastic parts and if assembled correctly should be workable. AVF Club does the same with 10 parts, including the same shock absorber attachments. The shock absorber includes a nice turned metal rod into which the rest of the absorber is added. Nice touch. Overall a lot of parts for such as small sub assembly. Watch the small plastic rod (part B5) to be inserted! Take care not to put too much glue on there (I only added a small drop at one end). With AFV Club when assembling the RHS you should use part B46 instead of B45 as otherwise the part will be too long.






The rest of the main road wheel arms are a simpler repetition of the above. It’s interesting to note that the Norwegian NM-116 only has two of the big shock absorbers mounted per side.





Coming to the sprockets. And here we have a new contestant coming along, the Armor Track Models resin part, which is a beautiful one piece casting with al the correct lightening holes. This needs some simple clean up (best to use a razor saw) and will fit perfectly to the Italeri Kit. Which really needs replacement, as it does not include and lightening holes. The Bronco sprocket is made up of three parts. The main section is a beautiful slide molded part that requires minimal clean up and has the correct lightening holes. Add to that the teeth and off you go, a very detailed and sturdy part. Now AFV Club chose a different approach to get the holes in. Here we have a central part to which the outer part of the rim (incl. the teeth) is added (the holes being on the gluing line, making lining up a bit tricky). I’m not quite sure this is as sturdy, as the gluing surface is quite limited.





Interim report:



That’ll be all for now. Next up will be the road wheels and return rollers.

Any comments highly appreciated!

OK , I'm hooked .

Great start!
Dan

Thanks for joining in, guys.

Time for some more wheels.

Idlers:



Basically the same problems as with the drive sprocket (the lightening holes) apply here, and them some. There is a distinctive recessed rim around the inner edge of the wheel which poses some problems to the molding. As you can see, Italeri chose the easy way out by providing a fantasy product. No more comment needed there (also see below). The ATM resin piece is again a beautiful resin cast in one piece. However, it seems to be somewhat undersized comparing to the other (closer to the Italeri item). Bronco provide you with a beautifully slide molded one piece item, to which you add the inner rims. Care is needed here to align it correctly, but the glue actually helps here, so don’t get discouraged by the dry fitting. Then you add the inner axle to make the wheel movable and the hub over that. AFV Club took more or less the same approach as with the sprocket, again with the small glue area and leaving some doubts about the stability.






Oops, just noticed a little sprue left on that Italeri Wheel hub in the last pic. Those close ups are killing me!

On to the Roadwheels. Simlest ones, Italeri. Two parts and the center hub. Some flash on the rims, but otherwise usable, if you ask me. Bronco and AFV Club chose a similar approach, with two center discs and the rim on each side, making four parts plus the center hub (which, by the way is the same as for the idler and much more accurate than Italeri dimensionally). Again, Bronco gives us a separate axle to make things movable. AFV Club give you two options for the road wheel, one with more hollow rims. The instructions state that you can use both and that they could be mixed on the same vehicle.



And the finished road wheels:



Hmm… For some reason I photographed the wrong side on that Bronco wheel…

Anywhoo… Here’s what it looks like when it’s all complete:



Now the mounting: Italeri is clearly the simplest and most sturdy assembly, while leaving the wheels movable for playing on the carpet … err… easy painting. Bronco’s are meant to be movable as well, however, the mounting is so small, that the glue will easily get into the wrong places and fix the whole wheel (ask me how I know… Don’t use Tamiya extra thin cement for this… ). AFV Club has nothing foreseen to leave things movable, so the wheels have to be glued in place (currently keeping them in place with silly putty to be painted separately, same for the Bronco ones that are not yet stuck permanently…).

Just a few more words on the sturdiness of life, the world and EVERYTHING!!!! Apologize for that… The assembly. Very sturdy with Italeri. Not so very sturdy but good enough in the Club. Fearing that at least part of EVERYTHING AND the world will break off at some point with Bronco. But we’ll see… Just a hunch…

So, more after Christmas and a few pounds more on my ribs (coooookies!!!!).


Rear armor plate next and then the top of the hull. And another shot, just because I like the perspective:



Cheers!
Stefan

wow, fun project!

Happy new year everyone! Hope everyone’s past the hangovers, now it’s time to get back to work.

Beware, the return of the Return Rollers! Massive amounts of return rollers had to be carved off the sprue and all eventually met for a parade square on my cutting mat:



We’ll have to work on the symmetry a bit… Anyway, as you can see, the difference is no that huge. AFV lead the charge with two parts, which makes it simple but they can not be moved after assembly. Italeri with their standard two part wheel and hub with axle, to make a nice movable assembly, easy for painting. Detail a bit lacking, and size a bit smaller than the other. Unfortunately I have no M24 to measure close by, but I assume the size of Bronco and AFV is correct as they both are the same. Then Bronco, with four parts, same assembly as the road wheels. Both AFV and Bronco have very nice details, with Italeri’s a bit lacking, but good enough.





Moving on to the Chaffees Behind.

Here’s what AFV and Bronco have to offer, some real nice detail, including some PE. Both will be built with the later pontoon attachments. Here you can ylo see the two different stowage options seen on Chafees, either the folding table type or the basket. I will be building the Bronco Korean War Chaffee with the basket and the AFV NM-116 with the table, as per the instructions. Some really nice details here on both kits, though I don’t like the AFV plastic chains. Will be looking into replacing them with “real” chain, but I’ll have to do that at a later time, when the fenders are installed.




Whoa?? What happened to the logos?? Well, you get the idea…

Now compare to what Italeri is offering:



Mostly molded on detail, as was standard 25 years ago. Lifting lugs that aren’t round. Note I had already modified the lights to accommodate the Verlinden PE fender brackets. Speaking of Verlinden:



Mainly some PE for the frame of the basket, some way oversized mesh (which is also used for the engine air intake) and a well undersized towing thingamaging (pintle? Looks kind of like an eagle’s beak?!). Not very helpful.

But then there were some leftovers from Bronco (with not needed holes already filled and sanded):



I decided to go from there, adapting the Bronco back armor plate and putting on some scratch detail for parts I couldn’t find. I also decided to use the much better Italeri towing pintle, add some details. The plate fit quite well with some shims from plastic card and a little putty, but I think it was well worth the effort. Not that it makes sense, but it was a very fun exercise. I’m actually having more good old fashioned modeling fun with the old kit than the others, gets the good old modeling skills out of gear.



OK, but this is probably not why you are following this build log. So here we go with the main contestants:






Nothing much to say here, actually. Everything went together problem free, no issues at all. Just be careful not to lose any of those minuscule parts… Both compare well with available pictures of the rear armor plate.

Next I will be dealing with the upper hull and engine decks. First layout of the main parts shows Italeri with a one piece upper deck, the AFV offering with separate engine deck and Bronco with the front portion separate and the engine deck with lots of sub assemblies… But more of that some other time. Gotta get some bench time first.

See you around! As always, any comments, critiques, added info very welcome!

Glad to see this project is so well underway, amazing work!
-Alan

 Thanks for looking in, Alan.

Here's some KMN reference material I stumbled upon while trying to find out whether there was always a mesh screen fitted on the center and forward air intakes.

 video walk around 
 walk around 1 
 walk around 2 

Still haven't really found an answer, as the area is mostly obscured by the turret. Any one knowledgeable about this area?

Cheers!
Stefan

Bronco may have more fiddley parts, and a more fragile construction, but they definitly have greater finesse and a smoother plastic surface (not meaning texture) than AFV Club. Won't even bother comparing with Italeri! Some day I must pull my Bronco Chaffee out of the stash and build it - when I need a break from building ships!

Happy Easter everyone!!!

Been a while… That’s because I got distracted by a friend with some Bolt Action 28mm figures:




But in keeping with the topic, I also built their M24 Chaffee with some modifications to make it resemble an M24 a bit more (e.g. I widened the front of the turret):



Now I’ve been a very bad blogger… Apart from not updating, I have also not properly documented my progress with comparison shots of the different parts. Got a bit carried away with on and off building… Only exception are the main engine deck components:

Bronco:
This is probably the most complicated setup of an engine deck I’ve seen before. There are lots of different component panels here and while the detail is fantastic and the fit is good, I do wonder whether it was really necessary to have all these separate parts?



AFV Club shows a bit of an easier way to do it without (in my opinion) compromising on the detail. First the original engine deck:



And with the main components for the updated Diesel engine of the NM116:



And then of course there is the one piece upper hull of the venerable Italeri kit with some quite soft detail and molded on engine netting:



Here’s a comparison of the engine decks. As you can see, the AFV and Bronco are quite similar while Italeri is more narrow.




That didn’t really help with my plan of replacing the Italeri engine deck with the leftover AFV one, but I did it anyway. Now the engine deck sits slightly too far in the front, but it is still an improvement.




Why did I take the effort when the Verlinden set offers some improvements? Simple. I found it less annoying to cut out and replace the engine deck than to try to adapt the PE to the actual size of the Italeri part…



As you can see, I also decided to cut off the air vents to make them correctly raised.

And finally a comparison of the front armor plate covering the transmission:




Quite some differences when it comes to the size (Bronco and AFV being more or less the same), angles and screws, which look most accurate with AFV Club, least with Italeri:


Now that’s it for comparisons. Next are some overview pics of where I currently stand.

Bronco went together well, no issues encountered here and no special items added:





Some really nice details here with the PE mesh, the PE light guards (though here I used a combination of the PE and thinned plastic guards. A nice bow .30 cal and hatches (not shown) with the full representation of the attachment and opening mechanism. They can be shown open or closed. However, you’ll need to add some figures or find a suitable interior here. Some very fiddly PE which I found hard not to loose…

AVF Club: No issues here either. Everything went well together, and while the PE mesh for the NM116 looks hard to get into the right shape, this actually proved quite easy. The light guards are in plastic but very fine moldings, no need to replace them with PE in my opinion.





And now back to my little “basic modeling skills throw in all the leftovers” exercise which proves to be quite interesting and fun:







This now includes Bronco front and back lower hull plates, scratch and AFV rear lights, verlinden front lights and brush guards, handles replaced with wires, AFV engine deck, AFV bow MG…

On to the tracks! Something made me start the tracks…

AFV’s the easy one. One piece vyinl track. OK detail..


Bronco has workable single link plastic tracks with great detail and very easy to build – jut click them together!


And then there are the Armor Track Models tracks. These are also single link with very good detail but a bit more complicated to build. Each track is attached to the other with a plastic pin on each side (so 2 per link). I glued these on with Tamiya extra thin cement and had no problem at all. The jig that is provided helps a lot! Thoug a bit more complicated to build, they certainly are worth the effort for the old Italeri kit.



Here are some comparison shots:



And finally a test fit on the model. In the case of Italeri/ATM I should probably remove another link to make the sag more realistic. Note that Bronco indicate to use 75 per side, however, that’s at least 3 too many.







Allright, that’s all folks! Next I’ll tackle the fenders.

Cheers!
Stefan

Hello Stefan
Has to be My favourite Allied tank.
Watching Your Triple build with interest, Have built the Italeri kit as a Indo China version way before Bronco released there's & added a load of extra's that were available at the time. . Still love the older Italeri kits ( soft spot for them ). Great comparisons with the other 2 makes. AFV looks slightly larger in scale.

Shaun

Shaun, thanks for looking in! My favorite too. Ever since I first saw "The Battle of th Bulge" as a kid. Fighting the evil German light grey M47 Tigers...

They're all pretty much the same size. In the meantime I finished the tracks (phew... Glad that's over... ).

Cheers!
Stefan

Whoa, I just found this triple kit Blog. I'm going to subscribe if you don't mind.

This reminds me of the triple SKIF T-55 Blog I did last year but this one is way better presented.

fascinating updates. its really intriguing to see how the kit designers handle the various components.

To bad you're not modeling a 4th Chaffee...like this beast used and modified by Chile! It's on my 'to do' list!!