To follow up on yesterdays review of the Legend ammo crates, today we have a review of the Legend ration sets that have been released.

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Based on the information I collected and posted on my website some years ago (and may likely have been used by Legend to create this set), I think Rick's review is a bit off base.

http://usarmymodels.com/ARTICLES/Rations/crations.html

I picked up the C rations set at AMPS and I believe it is spot on in terms of size and markings.

It is clearly a wooden box, not the fiber box. The separate panels are clearly present, as is a subtle wood grain. It's not the typical out-of-scale gouges one typically sees on pieces that represent wood (think Tamiya "rations" box included with Sherman sets). Those gouges are an easy way to represent wood, to contrast it from a metal surface, and take a wash quite well. But by and large they are overdone for what they represent (grain, not crevices). Even what is present on the Legends pieces may be a tad much compared to their real counterparts.

Wood grain is more than texture, it's also coloring, as you can see in the color photos in my article. That's up to the modeler, of course, and is more difficult to accomplish than a quick and easy wash. Check out how aircraft painters do wood grain on biplanes for some tips.

I invite you to read my article and draw your own conclusions, but I would give this a 100% rating. I have no association with Legend other than being an occasional purchaser of their products.

Cheers,

Tim

PS: I also bought a set of Legend .50 cal ammo wooden boxes, which also are excellent. I really like the fact that Legend is issuing accurate markings with these accessories, which have been lacking in the few other attempts to cover these items (Verlinden's old ammo box set comes to mind).

Sorry, I had composed this with logical paragraphs which got lost in the execution of the reply...

I think Tim has the right idea here. Back when wood grew on trees and wooden boxes were used for almost everything, the grain and quality was very smooth and to achieve the wood look on these boxes is going to be more by paint than texture. Thanks for the great review, I think I will order me a set or two.

Thanks Tim! Your comments are more useful than the actual review here. If these items get a 100% from you that's good enough for me!

Tim,
Thanks for your input; I said I was more than happy to be corrected and I meant it. However, (you just knew there would be a however!) One of the things that throws me off a bit with these boxes is that every one in the set is perfect. I'm guessing that most people look at the box top photos and are thinking "cardboard box", not wood. Every example I have seen seems to show the box top wood as a couple of different slats, something clearly not evident on the Legend pieces. In fact, the Legend pieces look a bit to perfect, more like the crates have been machined from Grade A birch plywood like you might use for nice cabinetry, not a box of rations. I understand the scale argument, but in 1/35 if your wood grain is to scale with no hint of knots, nails, imperfections, etc. (like the Legends set) it looks an awful like metal or maybe to give the benefit of the doubt, cardboard. Even your link (which is incredibly helpful and should be bookmarked by every serious WWII modeler) shows every crate with imperfections.
With all that said please understand I respect your opinion, you are far more the expert here than I, and I am not saying any of this to get into some kind of ridiculous flame war, only wanted to point out my perspective in looking at the crates. If you think they deserve 100%, (I would agree with that on the decals which are tremendous) I'd say let's split the difference and round up to 90%!

Cheers,
Rick