Any news on the release of new Academy M998 IED? It is posted on Academy's web site but looks like it's "available only in Korea" at this point. Their description has several grammatical errors- it's like looking at engrish.com. Hee hee.



:-)

No news, but it does look interesting. I'm sure many of us would welcome a HMMWV with ASK gear and new gunshield. Hope it is released in to the rest of the world soon.

Found this on Academy Europe Website. Looks pretty nice. New mirrors, spare tire, ASK armor plates and steel plates added to cargo area. .50 cal Barret sniper rifle. Mk 19 Grenage Launcher. Gunshield. Looks good to me.




More here.

Look's pretty nice.....Can't wait to get one....

It doesn't look bad, but it depends on the particular modeller. It looks like the armor shields need to be thinned a bit. I was with the 82nd Airborne in Fallujah, and none of ours had the nice factory built armor. The bench in the center of the vehicle was ones we built on our own, so you can have your way designing those. The hollows on the sides of the plate at the top were for shoulder straps for various packs. The Chicken shield for the gun is optional. Some liked it for the protection, but it eliminated the use of the T&E mechanism, it is very heavy to maneuver around, and if you are pulling security on the move and faceing to the flank, the wind yanks you around something fierce.

I think this will be the same Humvee they released a few years back with some additional parts and new side mirrors. Nice enough kit. No major fit issues. Hubs need some work. Half the price of the Tamiya Humvee.

Yup, probably will be. At worse, you can use the ASK (Armor Survivability Kit) panels and extra parts to add to the Tamiya kit and get an excellent version of a HMMWV w/ASK. The possibilities are pretty much endless. I definitely welcome it.

Yup cant wait it looks great.

News of this and the other Academy releases were posted yesterday in the News Section. Here:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/news/1347

Yea, I've known about those releases in Korea for weeks now. Too bad they are not here in the U.S. yet.

The tires look different/better than the original Academy tires. I wonder if they were updated as well.

Rob,

These tires look like tires in all Academy kits I have in my stash, so I guess they changed them quite a long time ago. I remember that in first Academy M1025 kit I bough many years ago there were indeed different, much poorer tires included, but I only saw them in that one early kit.
Newer tires are nicer, but not as accurate as Tamiya ones.

Pawel

Definitely have to add this to the HUMV collection

wooo... OK, I will get a permission from Lucky Model first before posting the photos of the new kit. By the way, Luckymodel.com sells them now. It is a pretty sweet deal- one totally new sprue that has new parts and extras, one sprue mixed with parts from its Troop carrier version and three old sprues, including some extra parts. In addition, it's half the price of Tamiya Humvee!


P2G

Were these pics posted with the permission of LM?..Jim

Here are the photos of sprues of the anticipated IED Humvee- with the courtesy and permission of Raymond Chung, the owner of Luckymodels.com.

New sprue #1:


Mixture Sprue #1:


Old sprue #1:


Old sprue #2:


Old sprue #3:


P2G

Looks pretty good. Can't wait to get my hands on one. Still ahs all the parts to build a non-ASK HMMWV as well. Good deal.

Definitely recognise the old sprues on this one. Currently building the M966 by Academy and have to say that you pay for what you get. Not every part fits accurately onto the main chasis. ie: the bonnet.

I compared the assembly to Tamiya's M1046 and can see why Tamiya's kit comes together really well. For example, the top suspension frame requires 8 contact points to get it to sit nicely with the bottom suspension frame whereas Tamiya has 4 or less, which makes it more forgiving assuming you didnt line it up nicely before. The wheel hubs dont fit the axles completely and requires a bit of filing as well.

The price of Academy's kit does tend to help you ignore these little discrepancies though. Will probably end up getting this kit anyway as im slowly falling in love with hummers.

This kit looks totally worth the price as mentioned. By just looking at the little parts in the new sprue and how they resemble many parts included in Blast model's resin Humvee update kit, I would get it just for the extra parts.