IPMS/USA Reviews

If you are a fan of the M1 Abrams, which has now been in service for over 30 years, David Doyle satisfies your visual needs with this book showing images of the XM-1, M1E1, M1A1, M1A2 SEP as well as some variants in between.  For Abrams fans and modelers alike, the photographs provide a wealth of detail for the tank from the prototype through the M1A2 variant.  The author provides many of the photos, but there are also plenty taken by the military that shows these tanks in action.  Overall, this is a great visual history of the tank beginning with photographs of the XM1 in 1976 and concluding with the M1A1 and M1A2 in 2017.  

Monowheel Background (from the instructions)

Lois & Co. was a British industrial combine, a group of businesses manufacturing military and sporting bicycles, motorcycles, iron castings, machine tools, and hard chrome process. It was founded by Spencer Lois, who had a passion for new innovative ideas, in the city of Birmingham.

Motor bicycles were added to bicycle products in 1910. The Lois & Co. Monowheel Mk.I was exhibited at the 1913 Olympia Show, London for the 1914 season. In November 1916 Lois & Co. launched their first military monowheel after a big contract with the British Ministry of Armaments.

When I was around 10-11 years old I got into a small scale armor kick. The local shop carried Airfix kits and I built a lot of their kits at the time. The first time I built the M3 Half Track it was a MPC release in their Battle of the Bulge Historama kit.

Fast forward 45, cough, years later and Airfix is re-releasing many of their kits under their Vintage Classics range. The kit appears to be the exact same plastic first released in 1966 including the 1 Ton Trailer. The kit includes 54 parts molded in an OD plastic. There is a bit of flash but what would you expect from a set of molds almost older than me. The kit includes some nice detail, a driver and one of the nicest small scale .50 caliber machine guns. Decals are included for an M3A1 during Operation Overlord. More about them later. The color scheme is shown in full color in the instructions. Other than that change the instructions look like they did when I first built it.

Meng exploded on the scene several years ago and continue to produce very high-quality kits of a variety of subjects. This kit focuses on the Israeli modified M-60 Battle Tank known as the Magach 6B. M-60s began service with the Israeli Army with the 1973 Yom Kippur War and most of the armored force was equipped with M-60 A1 and later models. The Israelis continued to upgrade their fleet to meet the changing threats on the battlefield. These vehicles have the low profile commander's cupola, an upgraded engine, and armor package as well as an upgraded fire control system. Academy has provided kits of the Magach 6B and 7C, so it will be interesting to see which direction Meng takes with this kit.

The Vehicle

The T-72 series was the most produced post WW2 tank. It is designed to have a low silhouette and smaller hull than most modern tanks. The crew is only three soldiers, with ammunition loading being done automatically. Due to the cramped crew positions, the maximum height of a T-72 soldier is 5 feet 9 inches.

The T-72 gun is a 125 mm capable of firing HEAT and APFSDS rounds, as well as ATGMs.

There are 40 different countries who have significant numbers of T-72s. In spite of an arms embargo, Iraq had 1000 T-72s in 1990. In 1996, this number had reduced to 375

The Kit

This kit is all resin, with no PE or other media parts. The markings schemes are for 4 different armies, Czech, Polish, North Vietnam and Soviet. The Soviet markings require no decals.