I need some pics of the M18 Hellcat and does any one make a M18 Hellcat and an good books for this tank and info



Matt

Well if you want a bunch of photos of a restored M-18 I believe Toadman has a CD of it. See www.toadmanstankpictures.com
Eric

Matt,

Both Academy and AFV Club make a M18 Hellcat. I have the AFV Club kit # 35015 and it is a nice kit, but the driver's / radio operators compartment are fairly basic. It will suffice if you leave the drivers and radio operators hatchs closed as the area will be hard to see through the turret. If the Academy kit is like their M10 kits the drivers area should be better detailed. Perhaps someone else can tell us about the Academy kit.

Darryl

Here is a link to some pics of an M18 on display in Auburn, Indiana.
http://cybermodeler.com/armor/m18/m18.shtml
Hope this helps,
Scott

hey,
here's a few pics that might help you.

Joe

http://www.olive-drab.com/idphoto/id_photos_m18td.php

http://www.tanxheaven.com/m18hellcat/m18hellcat.htm

I built the Academy kit and the driver's comparment is a little shy on detail. Overall I found the kit to be easy to build and I thought the detail overall was great. No problems with the build of any kind that I can remember.

I have the Academy M18 kit and I'm currently working on it. The interier is ok.. The driver and co-driver interier.. consist of a seat on either side of the transmission housing.. (fairly detailed looking.. there are 2 steering levers hanging down for each and molded on petals on the driver side. The radio is in the turrent rear and is pretty basic. but you have a choice of two types.. The periscopes for the drivers hatchs are fairly good.

The turrent is nicely detailed and once in you don't see much of the fighting compartment. My only gripe about the interier of this kit is the ammo is molded into the plastic on either side of the fighting compartment.


I must also say this kit is going together nicly with no real fit problems so far.. though I did have a couple of holes in the bottom of the lower hull to fill and I filled in the slots on either side of the lower hull where the front running gear goes.


Some good Reference books for U.S. Tank Destroyers are..

Squadon's U.S. Tank Destroyers in Action

and

Concords U.S. Tank Destroyers in Combat 1941-45

The squadron book is good because it has a good deal of text dealing with the history and delvelopment of each vehicle.. it covers mostly the M10, M18, and M36.

The Concord book is a bit light on text but has a ton of captioned photos of mostly the M10, M18 and M36.

Osprey also has some TD books that cover them a little more in depth but I don't have those.. yet..

Here are some reviews that should help you to choose...

On PMMS : AFV Club Hellcat
On TL :
AFV Club Hellcat
AFV Club Hellcat
Academy Hellcat
One of Academy's kit drawbacks is that the shape of the rear end of the hull is not accurate (Verlinden has released a resin substitute to replace the kit's part)

HTH
Frenchy

Both the available 1/35th scale M18s are deficient in terms of accuracy, so it all comes down to which errors bother you more. The Academy kit gets the hull side angles wrong, so the top deck is too narrow, and all the top hull detail is thrown off as a result. The tail plate is shown as a sharp angle, when the real vehicle featured a rounded, bent plate, not two pieces butted together. The Verlinden exterior correction kit has badly-engineered resin parts, and the photoetch does not fit correctly.
AFV Club's M18 is more accurate in overall shape, but the lower hull is not deep enough, so the tracks barely fit beneath the top hull, and the wheels look a bit shallow. I initially was inclined toward the Academy kit, but dumped it in favor of the AFV Club version, as it can be shimmed up to the correct height without too much fuss. If you do not plan to replace the engine grills with photoetch screen, the AFV Club's kit also has more accurate and more deeply-molded mesh detail.