US M48A3 Patton Tank

I you didn't have one of these tanks in your collection during the Cold War you most likely missed that era! I know because I built one during the largely un- heard of push by the Soviet Union to invade Western Europe via East Germany. These tanks which were equipped with the huge Infra red light on the turret were made famous by being able to at least slow that advance and thank goodness it never came. The night vision version of this U.S. Army heavy was far advanced past that of the USSR forces and could counter an attack. As always with Tamiya the ease of the build was the appealing part and I had no problems with it at all. For a historical and easy to build model, this is one war hear that never went into combat.

Tamiya Did awesome with this tank , I had a blast putting this M48A3 Patton Tank together,a lot of small pieces keep in mind, you can't rush this tank, it does require some level of skill and definitely bring some patience with you, there are features on the tank that have been added too make the tank look unique two mounted .50 cals, some color change was different than the guide suggested, The rubber track went together fairly easy, I super glue them , then heat a flat tip screw driver, press down on where they are connected and melt them just enough until the rubber mixes together. Don't get glue on clear plastic it will ruin it for the I.R. Light, I broke most of the eye hooks that mount on top of the turret and side of turret, so I used a pair of cut off pliars and cut the back ends of small paper clips to fix the problem other that that this tank has been GREAT, Have FUN!!!!! Scott M.

This was a great model to build. Pieces fit well with very little need for trimming or sanding. There are prominent curved surfaces on this model and I found that lightly adding some shading with an airbrush really made those features stand out. Dry brushing some highlights on some of the smaller features also really brought out its character and realism. Even without taking those additional steps it still looked great.