IPMS/USA Reviews

In the 80s, the U.S. Army began to look for a light tank to replace the M551 Sheridan. Specifically, the Army was looking for an air-deployable tank to support its airborne Divisions and to replace their TOW anti-tank HMMWVs. In 1992, the Army selected United Defense's vehicle designated XM8-AGS. Six prototypes were made and the M8 began trials. The basic armor package of the M8 is made of welded aluminum alloy, designed for rapid deployment and was capable of being airdropped from a C-130. There were 2 additional levels of modular armor planned for the vehicle depending on the threat level of the operating environment. Each additional level obviously increased the weight of the AFV, which decreased it's "air mobility", but still kept it light enough that at its maximum armor protection, up to 5 could be delivered via air landing on a C-5 Galaxy.

Kit Manufacturer

This is a high quality resin kit of the Jeffrey Quad 4 wheel drive truck produced by Lukgraph Models from Krakow, Poland. Lukgraph's focus is on British and American aviation in the years between WWI and WWII. Lukgraph also produces the Jeffery-Poplavko armored car, and Nash-Quad Artillery truck in 1/35 scale; and the Nash-Quad Truck, and Nash-Quad Ammunition Truck in 1/48 scale. Lukgraph also makes a number of WWI aircraft kits in both 1/48 and 1/32 scales. The kits are available direct from Lukgraph http://www.lukgraph.pl, Victory Models, or KitLinx in the U.S., and several European suppliers.

The review sample was ordered direct from Lukgraph and included a nice personalized photo of a completed kit. The cost of the kit is $84.83 plus $11.31 shipping (85EU total).

For me this kit seems like a match made in heaven. I have always liked the Stuart tank as well as have been looking to trying building one of the toon tanks from Meng. When the opportunity arose to do this review, I jumped on it. I was intrigued after Meng had released several Meng Kids aircraft kits and now, they have released at the time of this review 12 World War Toons tank kits. I also discovered while researching the kit for this review there is apparently video game utilizing the tanks in the series. At the time of this review the game is apparently in beta form.

They say first impressions really do define a relationship- and when I first received this kit and opened it up to see the vast amount of plastic inside, I knew this would be a long term commitment. One thing to note is the mix of gates from the older Centurion kit, mixed along with newer gates with the newer features of this specific Sho't Kal kit like the explosive reactive armor (ERA). This led to some challenges during the build as the older Centurion parts trees had their labels raised in very small letters along the sides of the gates.- although the location varied. Sometimes it was on the edge and other times it was towards the middle. The newer trees had their labels as newer kits do - outside with a dedicated square label that is very easy to read. In the end, I used some masking tape labels I made myself as I grew tired of searching for which sprue was which.

Brief History

The Sturmgeschutz IV (StuG IV) (Sd.Kfz. 167), was a World War II German assault gun variant of the Panzer IV used in the latter part of the war. It was identical in role and concept to the highly successful StuG III assault gun variant of the Panzer III. Both StuG models were given an exclusively tank destroyer role in German formations and tactical planning in the last two years of the war, greatly augmenting the capability of the dwindling tank force available to the German army on the Eastern and Western fronts.

From December 1943 to May 1945, Krupp built 1,108 StuG IVs and converted an additional 31 from battle-damaged Panzer IV hulls. While the number is smaller than the 10,000+ StuG III, the StuG IV supplemented and fought along with StuG III during 1944-45, when they were most needed.