US Light Tank M24 Chaffee

I will follow up with Rockykeele review. I agree with almost every thing he said. The metal gun barrel and extra parts added by Tamiya helped make this kit a winner. His problems with the road wheels can be avoided by putting tape on the suspension where the wheels slide into. The paint build up causes problems sliding the wheels onto the suspension. I did have problems with the track pieces at first. This was due to the fact that my liquid glue was old and not working properly. So I started using a new bottle and the problem went away. I don't mind the individual tracks but prefer the rubber type myself. Over all the kit is excellent and would recommend it to anybody.

This boxing of the M24 is another joint effort by Tamiya and Italeri. The original molds are Italeri, but Tamiya has added extra parts to make this a very nice and well detailed model. Tamiya adds a turned metal main gun barrel and link and length tracks as well as several sprues of extra stowage and gear such as ammo boxes, fuel and water cans, fuel barrels, several styles of kit bags, machine gun tripods, etc. The kit also comes with a single half figure of the tank commander. There are markings for 2 US tanks in WWII. Construction was typical and simple. Two areas required extra care for me. The first was the removal of most of the plastic main gun barrel. This was simplified by scoring provided on the inside indicating where to cut and remove material. The turned metal barrel fit nicely once the plastic was cut away. The second area of concern was the attachment of the road wheels. As Tamiya often does, the instructions have you trap a vinyl insert in between the inner and outer road wheels, and then slip this insert over the axles. The inserts on my copy must have been too small, as I could not get them to slide over the smaller outer axles. The axles themselves are somewhat fragile, and fearing that I would break them, I eventually cut the smaller outer section of axle off. The road wheels fit fine after that. The main gun breech is included, but it will be impossible to see if you use the commander figure. I also really like the link and length tracks that Tamiya has been putting in some of their newer releases. They are a bit more work to assemble, but I think they look much better than the old rubber band style tracks. The few decals (three stars and two turret numbers) went down fine with a little help from microset solution. There are several parts that are not used for this version of the tank - a set of small side skirts and a rear equipment shelf. Overall, this is a very nice kit with lots of details that any builder can easily pull off. Highly recommended, especially for WWII and US armor enthusiasts.