Recently I bought the Italeri Crusader AA and eventhough I normaly don´t fancy Italieris kits, this does look like a niceone -even if its a mixed bag of old and new stuff.

I don´t have much referance material on this "tank", and there´s not that much on the internet either, so I have decided do this as a step by step - so i can seek advice along the way.

Since Frank Portela allready have done a nice review on this kit here, im not gonna spend much time on that, but heres whats in the box:


Upper and lover hull and turretstuff.


Turret cloes up - pretty nice weldseams.


Runninggear.


Wheels are abit soft in detail.




Decals and rubbertracks, both looks ok, but I´m considering aftermarket tracks...


Closeup on tracks, not that bad, but ....


Instructions, oh, don´t we all love that ol´ trick with the "stirred" sprue.. :-)

I guess I´m gonna begin with the turret - now for the first questions:

1) Is the Interior white ?
2) Is the magazines on the Oerlikons OD ?

i prefer my sprue shaken, not stirred.

but seriously, thanks for posting up those pics - i've been wondering about that kit. i've got a little fetish for tracked AA, and this looks like it would be a reasonably nice addition to that collection.

I have begun the turret, something that I don´t like about Italeri is that they often seems to have more flash than most kits, and that the sometimes place knockout marks wierd places...


Like on this shot, its the seat for the gunner, 2 nasty knockout markson the visible side-why not just design it right so they go on the invisible side ...argh! -well easy to fix with putty - after all its modelling...


Heres the turretparts with the basket and the underside of the turret - a little flash on the rods for the basket .. nothing serious.

Not a lot of combat photos to refer to, as the British only kept the type in service about a month after D-Day. The German air force was largely absent, and they needed personnel to replace losses in their Sherman and Cromwell units, so most Crusader AA tanks were retired in July (the Polish 1st Armored Division held onto theirs, though). The Histoire & Collections book "British Tanks in Normandy" has some useful photos, and an English edition is now available--just received mine from Amazon.

On the IWM websiteI found this photo
Caption reads:THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH-WEST EUROPE 1944-45
Brigadier G E Prior-Palmer (right), commanding 8th Armoured Brigade, consults a map in Issum, Germany, 6 March 1945. A Crusader AA tank of the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry (Sherwood Rangers), can be seen in the background.

Go to the search page
http://www.iwmcollections.org.uk/qryPhotoImg.asp
and enter Crusader AA in the subject box then click ok and you should get more results

HI Jan

Ive allready built this kit and as you already know reference material is hard to come by

Just a little advice though, when you come to assemble the Oerlikons that you check the positioning of the ammo drums the instructions are a little vauge and if you fit the drums incorrectly they will snag the inner turret ring when you attempt to elivate the cannons , also be carefull when fiting the gun sight elevetion mechanism , its very fragile

Ian

Hi Ian, you are right, those mags are a pain in the.... to fit properly, allso the fit in the mount and the guns themselves are fiddly to put it mild ... anyway, with some styrene to support the guns it helps ...





Whats in the rear of the turret - personal gear ?, Stens ? mags for the oerlikons ?

The turret is drying, so I have begun working on the hull. The suspension is supplied and can be fitted without glue, so in theori it can be made workable. In reality its rather stiff, but it can easy be made to fit the contours of the groundwork.



All the details of the suspension is hidden when the hullsides is glued on.

Incidentally, check out the Eduard website--their photoetch set for this kit has just been released, and you can download the instruction sheets as PDF files. You can judge for yourself whether the added details are worth the extra cost and effort.

Thanks Gerald, I´ll look into it, generally I think the details are pretty good on this kit. Nice and thin molding of fenders etc, so im not sure of the value of the PE, on the other hand I have just ordered a set of Friuls for the kit ...

Actually the only real issue with the kit as far as I see it, is the way its engineered - the knock out point so some times unnessearily visible, the molding point are placed close to fine details and some of the assembly is not well thought out - especially on the gunparts. But all in all the quality is ok.

After a little break on this quite nice kit, I´m back on track ..

Heres mu fix for the somewhat fiddly fit of the guns, I glued a piece of styrene on them, to hold them better in position.



Turret is more or less done, here the interior has recieved a light dusting with pigments - being a opentopped turret,a lot of road dust must have entered the interior... Not too much wear and tear, after all its limited how lont this tank was in service.



Heres the hull front and rear - crisp details, but some holes and knockouts to fill, the cleanup is a bit of a dog due to the surrounding rivets and the rather hard plastic.



The parts for the airfilters ??? - i think it is ... - are a bit warped. The solution is to glue on the connetion on the upper hull first, and when thats dry, to glue the rest to give a good fit.



Heres the hull ready to paint, the turret is allready done, I used Humbroll 155.



Comments/suggestions wellcome including "photos on demand" :-)

Just got my Fruils, actually, its my first Fruils and I´m impressed!

Considering how relatively small the links are in a crusader track, the molding is very impressive.