Heya, Folks,

Just curious, is the Academy M-51 better than the DML M-51...?

What makes one better than the other --- looks like they are about the same price?

Thanks!

Aloha

Johnny B

I've never seen the Academy kit in the flesh (or plastic) before, but I do have the Dragon M51. It comes with individual link tracks and includes the turret for the M50 Sherman tank. You need several small parts from the M50 sprue so the rest of the turret is unused and goes into the parts box.

The Dragon single link tracks are challenging for a beginner. I had problems with them, but it was the very first time I had ever done single link tracks. The Academy kit has one piece vinyl tracks.

I have the Academy M-51kit that I'll be building for the "One of our tanks is better than ten of yours" campaign. So far in the box it looks real good. I'll be building OOB as I have several other thing to get done as well in the same timeframe.

Check out Israeli Military Vehicle Index for Tom Gannon's reviews of some of the available kits.

HTH,
Dave S.

I built the Academy version a few years ago pretty much out of the box, I had troubles with the muzzle brake, and the cloth mantlet cover, and the turret joining up, other than that the hull went together great and with just a little detailing looks pretty good. I saw a DML one with the Aber PE and it looks very good as well. There are some good articles on how to correct the kit but at the time I only had Janes AFV recognition and the box top for reference.


Have fun with it as they are really impressive looking when done.

The Academy version is a good kit with no build problems, can't comment on the DML.