Well, here is what I have so far. I had posted in another thread, the pages pulled out of the manual for the Reactive Armor. I'm using the manual along with the parts manual for the turret and hull to add most of the missing details. I was pretty happy how the up armored gunners hatch turned out. All I did was add some sheet plastic to the top of the existing hatch and putty and reshaped it a little bit. The photo etch sets are from Eduard and Voyager.

It looks respectable. The mounting details seem easier to add in 1/35 than it would in 1/72 scale. One of the things I didn't quite like in the 1/72 scale set is the way the tile assemblies looked too dress right dress. Your turret tiles look not perfectly aligned with one another just like an actual vehicle would have.

I'm still thinking about what I need to do to that front turret armor array to make it look more proper.

At lest on the 1/35 Tamiya kit, the blocks didnt match with the bolts on the turret plates. I had to slice off most of the bolts. With the actual pictures of the vehicles, I left the bolts that can be seen. I'm not sure if the bolt placement on the kit are correct or the block are incorrect. I'm leaning mor torwards the block being incorrect.

Rob, looking at my turret, do you see anything missing or anything I can add.

Not Rob, but I see two minor things that could be added. You added PE plate on the right rear "corner" of the turret (inside the bustle rack) - identical part should be on the left rear corner. Also you could add periscope guards over gunner's periscopes and over commander's left periscope.

Also the way the bustle rack is attached to the turret on the left side is not accurate, but I doubt anyone would notice that, as no kit or PE set depicts it correctly

Other than that it looks great!

Pawel

Thanks Pawel. I might have to remove the PE plate on the right. I odnt think it will look right if I make another one out of platic and have that one out of brass, so I'm just gonna make two out of plastic.

Yup, forgot about the periscope covers. Gonna run to the LHS and get some Evergreen strip as close to the size of the scopes.

Looks very good thus far. For the uparmored hatch, did you scratchbuild the whole thing, or is the kit part underneath?

The saying "They will create a must-have AM set after you build the models" rings true. I am in the process of finishing my Bradley and was wondering if anyone was ever going to come out with an ERA kit. Now they have and I'm almost done . Oh well, that much more money to spend on something else.

But anyway, with Voyager and Eduard PE, Verlinden ERA set, the kit itself, I am assuming you will be adding additional stowage; I'd say you are going all out.

How much did the ERA set cost? Maybe you could write up a review to go in hand with Sabot's 1/72 set?

Jeff

The set ran me around $30 at my LHS.

The kit hatch is underneath a thin peice of sheet plastic and I used putty to fill in the void.

There are some good photo's in two of Concords Assault Journals and on line of some of the vehicles of the 1st ID, so I am going to paint it after one of those. It's going to be NATO 3 color and the blocks painted sand. Here is one of the pictures. There is really not that much gear on them.



I came to the conclusion that I will write up a build article. I just came from the LHS and picked up some more stuf for the armor. I found some good rectangular tubing for the side armor mounting brackets and some flat brass for the front brackets.