Here is a quick in box review of the New Takom Chieftain Mk 5/5P kit which arrived at my door 24 minutes ago!

I cant promise to be unbiased with this kit I was involved with its development and an accurate Chieftain has been a long held dream.

If you are familiar with Takoms kits then the box will be no surprise nor will the box art which depicts an Iranian Chieftain in action. But lets get to the good stuff! Pic 1 shows the 24 page instruction booklet which is printed in landscape format and the instruction seem easy to follow. There is also a fold out colour chart with 7 different colour schemes, Batus, Iranian, Kuwati and Berlin brigade.

The kit itself is made up of 333 plastic tank parts 404 parts for the tracks which are split into two the track and the rubber pad for ease of painting the tracks are the click together type. There is also an PE Sprue with engine deck covers, handles and the drivers splash guard. A clear sprue which wilI be common to all 3 kits finishes of the box of goodies. Each sprue or pair of sprues is individually packed as we have come to expect.

I am glad that Takom did not go down the complicated for complicated's sake route with this model. Instead they have opted for an accurate and detailed model which looks easy to assemble very Tamiya like in fact.

The sprues themselves are flash free and moulded in grey plastic the level of detail is very good and the assembly process seems to have been thought out with knock out marks hidden and seems in logical places. Im sure someone will say the headlight guards and baskets are moulded a little thick but they are substantial on the real thing and look ok to me. Crew hatches can be posed open and the turret Hatches have interior detail, no crew are included and there is no interior detail. The engine and gearbox decks are one piece but those who want to superdetail the kit will have something to do wont they!
The Chieftains deceptively complicated storage bins have been reproduced accurately and the baskets have PE inserts a nice touch. The Gunner main sight can also be posed open or closed. The commanders cupola is a multi part assembly but that allows for a very detailed cupola the wiper motors are especially nice. Parts D23 and D24 make up a don 10 cable reel and fuse wire will ned to be wound round the drum.

What faults can I find? not many and you cant really call them faults in the most part, but here they are

The Barrel is split along its length and will need careful clean up to hide the seam

The Commanders MG has had its cradle simplified.

The tow cables are moulded in one piece and straight but this is how they were stowed. Still Im sure lots of modeller's will replace them.

That's it I cant tell you how happy I am to get these and I will do reviews of the other two later right now Im going to start building

I tried to upload photos but cant work out how help please

Nice! I haven't even seen it in any online stores, yet

Lucky Model are taking pre-orders, US$44.99 and their shipping is reasonable. Already ordered all 3 variants to compare against my AA conversions.

Since he says he was involved with the development of the kit I guess Takom gave him a free preview as a thanks.

Thanks for the teaser. Saw these new 51 Studio figures over at Hobbysearch:


Faces seem a bit cartoonish but that might be the painting/photo? Hopefully we'll see more UK cold war tankers in the near future.

Cheers,
/E

Wow those faces are horrible!

they look like horrible twins!

Blimey chaps i say.Think these two chaps have had a fair old whack with the ugly stick!!!.Im looking forward to the Chieftains arriving.Along with the Chally 1 and Leopard 1s my favourite tanks.
Richard

They will be okay with hornet heads and you'll need to remove one of the CPU's
From the non commander figure . The loader would not of had one.

Dan

They remember me Friar Salvatore from The Name of the Rose,

Shouldn't they be in Team Fortress 2?

What kind of figures are already available? As fare as I know Accurate Armor has a set, and Verlinden too (?)
The figures from Tamiya's old offering are great animated I think - although sadly outdated detail wise.

I used the tamiya stock items for my chieftain build, nothing wrong with them at all ,used Hornet resin heads and changed the pose slightly.









Dan

IIRC most British tanker sets for the 1970-Gulf war will be suitable.

They look stunning, i just wish they'd hurry up and let me buy them!

I'm supposed to be holding off buying anything till we have our house sorted out and then this comes along yelling 'BUY ME BUY ME BUY ME!'.
I suppose if I ask nicely for Christmas I might get it.
I've always liked the Chieftain and thoroughly enjoyed building the Tamiya a few years ago.

I don´t think those figures are that bad, it is just that 1-They both portray the same guy, and 2.- The faces are too big, so to keep the size of the whole head in 1:35 the sculptor has reduced the rest of the skull to a minimum. All the head is face, which is unnatural and reminds me of some rare syndroms. But if you consider one of the faces isolatedly, it has quite convincing British traits. For me, at least.

There was a Gulf War in 1970? Must have missed that one...

Cheers,

Christophe

[quote]


There was a Gulf War in 1970? Must have missed that one...

Pretty sure it was intended as from the 1970's up to and including the Gulf war...

Mike

It was intended as that.

Depends on the headsets. You need to have the appropriate comms harness for the period. From what I have seen, all the Takom kits have Clansman whereas Tamiya's old Chieftain has the Larkspur sets; while Clansman has a non-helmet headset option, I'm not sure they were issued to tank crews.

What about these bad boys..

And these.




Cheers

Dan

If I remember well Accurate Armour have a couple of British tanks too.

Olivier

Are you sure? I know they want their kits to be accurate [else the word wouldn't be in their title] but I'm sure you can just study study the scale plans and measure the vehicles are the nearby museum instead of having ot but the whole tank for yourselves.