ICM announces two new kits, Standard B "Liberty" Series 2, WWI US Army Truck and Panzerspähwagen P 204 (f) with CDM turret

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Thanks!

For those who may not know, ICM came out about six months ago with the earlier Series 1 Liberty Truck. The only differences between the two vehicles would be that the earlier Series 1 utilized (for the first time in US military history) electric lighting.

Due to inexperience on the part of the mostly rural US soldier of the day, there were difficulties maintaining the new electric lights and batteries. It was decided in the Series 2 trucks to return to the more familiar old style oil fed carriage lighting. The Series 2 also carried a searchlight that was powered by carbide gas.**

You will see in the ICM provided model photograph above the oi fed, carriage style driving lights plus the carbide searchlight and the carbide gas generator mounted on the front outside face of the cowl.

One other very special difference: In the ICM Series 2 model they chose to represent the later cast metal, open spoke wheels while the Series 1 gave us the older style wood spoke wheels.

(I might want to buy/build a second truck just to get my hands on those nice cast wheels!)


** The ICM Series 1 vehicle also carries the searchlight. (presumably electric in this case.) This appears to be an error - the earlier original vehicle is said to NOT include the searchlight.

Here is the completed earlier ICM Series 1 Liberty Truck. You can see the alternate electric lighting as mounted on the cowl.

This is a beautifully engineered model with great fit and a lot of detail. ICM has done a wonderful job on both these Series models.

And the original Series 1:

Items that would be on my wish list to add to both these models:

- A small bit of PE to represent those leather belts absolutely necessary to hold down the front edge of the cab cloth top. ICM provides nothing to cover this particular detail.

- Black decals for the lettering that goes on the canvas top. As you can see in my photo the low visibility blue practically disappears on my canvas top. The original vehicle employed both colored lettering styles of text on the canvas.

- A decal to represent the Engineers plaque that should appear below the driver's seat. ICM included the raised triangular plaques in the model but no decal.

Additional info on the Liberty Truck as well as sample builds are available on Armorama at:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/50451

Series 2 Liberty Trucks




Army Transportation Museum; Ft. Eustis, Va.

On a related topic:

I would like to file a "constructive complaint or objection to" regarding Armorama's practice of publishing manufacture announcements of multiple products but then picking only one of those products to show.

This thread is a prime example of the practice. The Series 2 Liberty Truck gets all the coverage but the Panzerspähwagen gets only a minor mention and a follow-up photo!

Constructively yours
165th SPC

I was just thinking the same thing in that the Pz Spah wagon seems interesting and that I'd like to read more on it. The CDM turret really look interesting on that chassis.

Don't shoot the messenger! (that is, me )

The information released by ICM is just that... the name of the model and one single photo:
http://www.icm.com.ua/news/585-panzersp228hwagen-p-204-f-with-cdm-turret-wwii.html

I hate also not having material for making a better news, but more often than not I get very little info...

Carlos - Thank you for your reply however I guess I was referring to something we have spoken of before. In that I feel if the announcement covers two products from a manufacture both products should be covered equally in the opening Armorama thread page.

In my mind the opening page should contain (if two products are announced) two separate product titles and two photos, one of each product. Then we the viewer can choose to go to further, going to the reference page where the manufacture may choose (as they often do) to place more photos and information.

Otherwise the Armorama opening page might as well just say "here's the link, do what you want".

As it is I feel we are not giving the manufacture his/her full due. Also we run the risk of the viewer missing something they would otherwise be interested in. A photo of each product speaks much louder than just an additional text mention in the headline.