Hello all! Today I'll be starting this build log of AFV Club's CM11 tank. I managed to snatch this off ebay for a great price, so I couldn't wait to get it started. The blog will detail the general construction of the kit as well as any problems I encounter. I will be building this OOB, as I don't have the time nor the money to do much else. I'll start off with a brief history of the real vehicle followed by some sprue shots and the work I've already done!

The CM11 is a Taiwanese tank from 1990 still in use today. In the early 1980's, the ROC (Republic of China/Taiwan) realized that their M48A3's were outdated, and not suited to battle increasingly superior Mainland Chinese tanks. They thus asked General Dynamics to get them a new vehicle. The first prototypes were delivered in 1988, using the turret of the M48A5 and the hull of the M60A3. The turret, along with the M48A5 advances, had advanced fire control and imaging systems from the M1 Abrams. The Taiwanese thus received 550 tanks nearly identical in performance (or even superior) to their existing M60A3 fleet. In recent years, the Taiwanese have added Explosive Reactive Armor to these vehicles (which HobbyFan/AFV Club make a resin set for). "CM11" is the ROC designation for the vehicle, while "M8H" is the General Dynamics designation for the pre-production prototype.



The Kit: Instead of putting all the sprues of the kit here right now, I'll put up pictures of the sprues when I need to use them in construction. However, I'll list out the sprues for the kit.

2 AFV Club sprues for parts specific to this vehicle.
AFV Club's T142 Workable Track Links
Academy's M48A5 Turret
Academy's M60A1 Lower Hull

Construction: Today I decided to start on the Turret, and I immediately ran into some issues, but first the sprues.







The instructions tell you to install part Z37 with the gun mantlet; however, Z37 would be upside down, and the side notches (which are thankfully different sizes to ensure correctness) would not fit correctly.


^WRONG

^CORRECT

Also, when you attach part Z37 to the back of the mantlet, the gun barrel ends up being crooked, so I shaved a good amount of plastic off the right side to make it "look" okay, which is pictured below.




That's all I've done for today, I'm planning on finishing the construction of the kit this week and do the painting in the next month or two. If you have any questions on the kit I'd be happy to answer them! See you later!

Update 1:
Nearly finished with the turret. Nothing overly problematic to note other than the fiddly turret basket and side grab bars. Just have a few more bits to add and it'll be done, I'll finish it up later tonight and tomorrow, then start on the lower hull!

Update 2:
Finished the upper hull, will start the lower hull tomorrow! Here's the sprues and the result!

Very interesting, thanks for sharing!

I have three of those kits, one to do a "plain one", one to do the reactive armor HobbyFan conversion and one to do the HobbyFan CM-12 conversion.

DEF MODELS also plan to dd a CM-11 conversion (probably for the AFV Club M-60 series kits).

Cheers,

Christophe

Also this CM-11 from AFV Club kit is mostly made up of Academy sprues -from their M48A5K and M6O series kits- with some AFV Club parts thrown in (small sprue for turret details, road wheels from their M88 kits, and workable tracks, plus new decals). That is just from memory, I may be wrong on some points.

Cheers,

Christophe

Thanks for the extra info Christophe!
Update 3:
The Lower hull is nearly finished, just a few more parts to add before completion. Now I'm starting the track assembly, I believe I'll need to do 162 links total, which is daunting for someone like me who has never assembled these tracks. Hopefully everything will go to plan!

Nice work. Thanks for sharing.

Cheers
Ken

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I finally got the tri-tone camo scheme down, I used Tamiya TS-78 and Red Brown, along with Vallejo Dark Rubber. I still need to do a couple more coats of black and brown, but it's nearly complete!

Dear Sirs,
I need quality scans building instructions AFV Club 35S01 - CM11 tank. Can you help me?