Thats one nice looking kit . Think i mite have to invest in one.

Well seeing that buying one of these is as close as I am going to get to crewing one. My assignment will be exiting the ramp of an M1126 instead. So long 19K, hello 11B

So far, so good.....hopefully the kit was designed from a production vehicle and not a prototype. It should be fairly easy for aftermarket producers to come out with a slat armour set based on the already multiple existing sets and a gun shield for the .50 Cal. to bring it up to a current Iraq deployed version.

Thank heavens I work in a model shop, employee discount is wonderful...Gotta have this one. Keith.

Looks like I'm going to need about 4 of them. I wonder why they have a seam along the top of the thermo shield on the gun instead of using slide mold tech to make it one piece? Jerry

A tad annoying that they don't post pics of the completed model. At any rate, comparing it with my walkaround, several obvious things jump out, without even looking hard. The recoil mechanism housing is lacking some VERY prominent double bead welds, on both sides. However, because of where they've placed the seams, they can be hidden if one chooses to add the welds. The hatch on the rear turret plate is flush on the real thing, not proud as depicted in the kit. Another hatch on the top rear of the turret has a wide rim all the way around it. The real hatch is perfectly flat. For the rivet counters - on the plus side, they are all correctly numbered and placed, but the bolt heads on the turret top are far out of scale. If they had shown if there's going to be any semblance of an interior of the turret, I could comment on that, but alas... I imagine there's a lot more to find, but I'll wait until I have one in hand.

Based on the comparisons would you be able to say that they just cut corners on the kit or are they basing the kit on a pre-production version?

I don't think it was a preproduction vehicle. My thoughts are that they probably had most of the kinks worked out of the vehicle, and then added the already tested turret. Of course, that's why I'm the team weapons sergeant and not the team engineer. The oddly shaped cutouts on either side of the turret near the pivot point area are absolutely correct, along with everything I had time to look at. (my connection is EXTREMELY slow...) From looking at the photos, without actually having the kit in front of me, everything looks dimensionally and proportionally correct. I have no explanation for the hatch errors - they are very noticable. The one on the top of the turret does'nt look to be an easy fix. It's going to involve a little cutting and filling. As for the missing weld seams on the recoil mechanism housing, perhaps they chose not to use the highly vaunted, and age old method of using slide molds, which would cost a bit more. But, as I said, adding the welds will hide the prominent gaps you see on each side of the housing, as they are in the same location. Other turret welds are missing as well. Perhaps they just wanted to leave something for us to occupy our time with. The overly large bolt detail is something we've learned to accept from more than one manufacturer. I must say the sight on the left turret looks very good. My photos have it open (which is by far more interesting) but the overall shape and details are spot on. I wish they had added the rear hull plate, but I guess we'll have to wait. At least by leaving off the hull armor it's easy to see that the left hull hatches will be correctly flush, and that the hinges will be correctly recessed.

Has anyone heard when this will be available yet?