Tasca
35-L9

Yes, that is how Tasca misspells the word "Cradle," but that's how you might need to find it with an online search engine. In this review, I'll skip over the machine gun parts which I cover in my review of Tasca's Set A with Tripod. The main difference with this set is the cladel, er, cradle.

Again, comparisons can be made with Academy's U.S. Machine Gun. Here, you get only one short turret pedestal, but two different cradles, mounting pintles, and ammo trays for early WWII and late/postwar use (the latter, in case you don't read Japanese, is the tray with the hole on each side, and the pintle with the round coil spring cover, parts Z15 and Z21). Academy has early and postwar cradles, ammo boxes, and trays (virtually the same), but lacks the late coil spring for the pintle, and has only one pedestal. (Note: you get two identical sprues, as seen below, to oufit two machine guns.)

Tasca provides the mounting bolt detail for the pedestal, missed by Academy, and its locking lever is molded away from the pedestal body (beware of snapping it off), while Academy has it molded onto the side of the body.

Tasca's set has more detailed and refined than Academy's and certainly would improve upon the contents of Tamiya and DML kits. But Academy's set is a strong alternative and it comes with decals, more ammo boxes, and a set of .30 guns.

Product sample provided by Tasca.

-tss-