Meng has released several photos of their new Abrams through AK Interactive

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Cleaning up that barrel looks like it'll be really rough. The tracks also look tricky, but I thought Meng's T-90 track went together really easily so I guess we'll see. Other than that, looks pretty good to me. I look forward to seeing some detailed comparisons to the other Abrams kits out there.

No clear hubs?

I prefer the colored plastic hubs. In my opinion, the clear ones are a gimmick. The center hub lobes look better painted a dark black-brown color (representing the gear oil inside) since the clear plastic is too thick and looks off to me.

Same for the clear periscopes. They are not clear on actual tanks, so why on models? When you look at an actual periscope or optics, they are dark with a red/blue/purple sheen from the anti-laser coating. Clear periscope parts don't represent these well. I over-paint them too; first black, then a couple coats of clear red, and a couple coats of clear gloss and they look just like the real thing.


The rest looks pretty good though. We'll have to see how it builds up. The engine compartment and turret ring look to have the beginning parts for the interior. I'm looking forward to it too.

You have a good point. Besides they are mostly covered anyway.

those tracks are kinda tricky. they ALso look very much like bronco tracks I built up for a M48. the gun doesn't look THAT bad, no different from any other split gun. the thing I like to see are the undercut lift handles on the engine deck. VERY nice detailing there

I don't think so. It is just illusion in the photo. Undercut details like that would make the part stuck to the hard metal mold and releasing it would require damaging the details.

Any significant improvements over the Dragon M1A2 SEP kit (other than this contains TUSK I/II parts)?

The grab-handles are very well defined, that shows in the pics. And I have to admit being somewhat flabbergasted by the detail on the inside faces of the road wheels.

I like the look of those tracks.

I agree these tracks are welcome, nothing tricky about them.

I MUST HAVE ONE!!

Really Meng, a two parts split main gun tube in 2016? - Come on!

Is it me or does it look like the track "pins/rods" are spaced out on the sprues so you could attach the pads, and then remove the short runs from the sprues? That seems like it would be helpful.

THIS MENG-1/35 BRADLEY IFV IS VERY DETAILED KIT IS 10/10.

This isn't a Bradley. It's the M1A2 Abrams....

So these track links are like the Bronco ones? Looks like they build up in a similar fashion?

Come on! How many complex one part main gun do you known in model kits?

Modern MBT barrels aren't just simple tubes anymore- you have to split a styrene barrel in half or all the rings and fittings on it will look [auto-censored].

I'll wait until some of the guys anxious for this release gets one and shows his built.
Looking at how the kit is engineered, I want to see mainly how good actually results the hull sides' fit, and the tracks' building process...

Looks nice, but I'm still not that excited about it, so will stand with the couple of Dragon M1's I have in my stash before rushing to get this kit.
Of course, if you really want a Tusk version, this kit is surely far better than the Tamiya offering.

Well Dragon did it without splitting the tube down the middle on their Abrams series 10 years ago, by moulding them as cylinders, you assemble.

For the tracks, these look great, similar to Bronco, but look to have much better/more positive points to apply glue to, which is a weak point with Bronco tracks, that you have to be super accurate/hope there is no run-off with the glue.

Yes but the two piece plastic barrel in the Dragon kit still has more detail. I don't see the problem with two piece barrels, it's something basic modelling skills should be able to handle. How do so many aircraft modellers manage with those two piece fuselages?

Jim

The difference between aircraft fuselages and barrels (not modern thermal types) is that aircraft fuselages aren't round/tapered round and also are a lot thicker, barrels on a 1/35 tank are small vs even a 1/144 scale fuselage, and show any mismatch/errors very visibly.

That said Paul Budzik has some great tips although it does need some pretty specialist non-modelling tools

Really...people are STILL bellyaching about 2 part barrels..?!! These guys must be youngins, cause we were doin this 20-30 years ago with nowhere NEAR the level of engineering in today's kits...come on you guys, today's kits are 1000 times better than those blobs we used to build. Ya, ya at those prices they should...blah, blah, blah...

Not Bronco style tracks!!! I used Bronco tracks on my leopard and they took forever to assemble! Why couldn't they have made them like their T90 tracks!