M18 Hellcat US Army Tank

My absolute favorite tank in the best build kit ever! A lot of fun to build, very detailed and the parts fit great. Be patient, this is a very detailed build, but soooo worth it. I tried my hand at staining the finished tank for the first time and I think it looks great. A lot of extra accessories to add on and make it look authentic. Highly recommended!

The M-18 was an outstanding and underrated fighting vehicle used by U.S. forces in Europe. It was the fastest tracked vehicle of the war, and had the highest kill-to-loss ratio of any tank or tank destroyer.This kit of the Hellcat has been around since avout 2000, and it sat on my shelf for a long time. Finally dug it out and built it, and thoroughly enjoyed it. In general, it’s a solid kit with plenty of detail and good fit, and produces a beautiful Hellcat. Here are some details of the build: The kit comes with a nicely detailed interior comprising the driving and fighting compartments. The chassis and hull fit together well, and the wheels include poly caps that allow the wheels to turn. Overall fit of the kit was excellent, and no filler was required anywhere (one of the reasons I work largely in armor now, and don’t build aircraft nearly as often as I used to). The tracks, like most Academy kits, are a tight fit. I left off the rear idler wheels and put them on along with the tracks to make the process easier. In addition, the vinyl tracks are not like modern one-piece tracks that can be joined with regular plastic cement. They call for the old melt-the-pins-with-a-hot-screwdriver method, which never works well. I roughed up the attachment points of the ends of the tracks and glued them with CA, which seems to have worked well. If you don’t like the vinyl tracks, the kit comes with link-and-length multipart tracks. I chose not to use them. Academy plastic is not my favorite. When scraping seems and mold lines, it makes your scraper/blade bounce and results in a less than smooth result. You just have to be careful with the parts. There is a decent assortment of on-vehicle accessories, including the usual tools, but the kit also includes extra ammo rounds, cases, a couple of boxes, jerry cans, .50 cal. Ammo boxes, and some kit and equipment bags. Academy provides a string and two plastic parts (for the end loops) for a tow cable. String is not a great option for a cable, and braided copper wire is much better. However, the string wasn’t particularly fuzzy and looks OK. Sadly, I misplaced my cable after assembly and painting, so it is not on the vehicle. A nice representation of the 50 cal, machine gun is included. I drilled out the end of the barrel for a more realistic appearance. No crew figures are included. I painted mine with a base coat of traditional olive drab, and then did some pre-shading with black along panel lines and edges. After that came a light, misted coat of lightened olive drab. Weathering was done with pastels after a coat of Tamiya clear flat from a rattle can. This is a great Hellcat at a great price, about 28 hours of building enjoyment. Highly recommended.

I just finished the M18 build, it's my first Academy kit. Great detail they include some figures. The directions could use some work hard to figure out where some parts went, the inside of the turret. Also dry fit turret and hull parts might have to trim or sand to fit. Now lets talk about the rubber tracks, THEY DO NOT FIT. They are to short, I ended up glue tracks to the wheels & sprocket then used single pieces from the plastic track to fill in worked out good. Again detail great, plenty of extra gear and parts to use for stowage. This kit is not for beginners, I've been modeling for many years and this kit was a challenge, but when it's all said and done I enjoyed it. Makes you think and use yours. Would I recommend this kit or buy another Academy product. The answer is YES.