AFV
Club
35019
The advent of
good, inexpensive and easy-to-assemble styrene after-market track
sets has been a real boon for most U.S. armor fans. For too long,
most of us were stuck with either whatever came in the Tamiya kits,
most of which were over 20 years old, or having to purchase expensive
and difficult to assemble Model Kasten styrene replacement sets.
The former were downright awful, with the M3 medium tanks and M3,
M5A1, and M8 kits all suffering from having the very noticeable
end connectors attached to the centers of the track links, and not
the track link ends. The latter required up to twelve hours to assemble,
usually had sink holes in the track pad faces, and were very fiddly
to deal with.
When AFV Club
released its working sets for the M88 and M48/M60, as well as the
M-1 Abrams, a new standard in modeling was achieved. The tracks
were semi- workable, with end connectors which simply slid onto
the track links, permitting them to flex, and which also permitted
not only accurate depiction of the tracks, but also provided the
modeler with the ability to easily paint them off the model and
then install them. AMPS members agreed these were among the best
ideas in a long time, and awarded them the Gold Medal for Best Injection
Molded Accessory for 1994.
Along with their
companion late model "three bar cleat" all steel cast
T36E6 track, AFV Club covers nearly
all of the primary options for the M3 series light tanks, the M5
series light tanks, the M8 75mm HMC, and the derivative vehicles
like the M5 13-Ton High Speed Tractor. The T16 tracks are the reversible
rubber pad type such as those which were poorly represented in the
Tamiya M3, M5A1, and M8 kits. Each link consists of the now famous
AFV Club link with four long styrene pins and two end connectors
with bushings.
The T16 tracks
will necessitate a bit of cleanup, with slight ejector pin marks
on one side of each pad. An additional step is required to prepare
the model to take these tracks, namely burring off the rings which
Tamiya placed inside the drive wheels on all three models; this
is so the correct length guide teeth can fit down over the driver
teeth into position.
There is only
one catch: the tracks have to be assembled one link at a time. With
the other M48 series tank tracks, the end connectors were set up
on the sprues so that a number of links could be assembled at one
time in a near jig-like arrangement. Those sets only took me an
average of three hours to clean up and assemble for painting. These
tracks will have to be done carefully, one link at a time, with
care taken to trap the pins of the next link when assembling the
connectors to the previous one. This is a bit tedious, but the results
are worth it, and the tracks are much better overall than the only
other optionheat-bent resin.
Overall, these
tracks correct one of the most egregious flaws of the M3 and M5
series models from Tamiya.
-Cookie Sewell
|