U.S. Medium Tank M3 Lee
Academy 1:35th Scale Kit #13206
Review by Terry Ashley

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Rivet Counters Anonymous
At the risk of being labelled a rivet counter, I did just that and there are a few minor issues with the many rivets in the kit. Firstly on the separate rear superstructure panel (part B32) the constraints of injection moulding sees the rivets on the two side angled sections elongated and not formed nice and round like the others on flat surfaces and also on the right hand side there are only 3 rivets and not the correct 4 as there are on the left side. On the inner end of the angled sections there are 2 rivets missing from either side and along the top of the rear section there should be 12 rivets but only 9 of the kit part but these should be easy to add.

The pattern of the rivets on the upper corner of the right hull side (just forward of the door) have the wrong alignment with 3 of the rivets that should be below the others (the 2nd, 4th and 5th rivets from the forward edge of the side panel) but it should be easy to cut these off and reposition.

The vast majority of photos show 10 rivets down the forward edge of the right side plate but on very early hulls there are only 8 with a gap in the rivets below the first 2 and this arrangement is depicted on the kit part again indicating the very early hull in the kit. You may want to add the 2 extra rivets for later vehicles and checking references on the vehicle you are modelling would be the go.

On the lower front section of the left side panel there are only 5 rivets where there should be 6 with one missing from just below the mid angle of the plate and strangely all the instruction diagrams show the 6 rivets in this location but it should again be easy to add one more rivet here.

Along the lower edge of the right side panel there should be 35 rivets but there are only 33 on the kit and along the front edge of the upper hull there should be 13 rivets but only 12 on the kit. On the left side there should be 38 rivets along the lower panel edge but only 35 on the kit panel.

On the upper edge of the rear sloped panels the row of 10 rivets are missing but these are covered by the large sponson storage boxes (not included in the kit) but should be there for the smaller storage boxes included in the kit and there should also be 3 rivets behind the left fuel filler cap as included on the right side.

The row of bolts at the rear of the forward engine bay hatch (part B18) should have 10 bolts but there are only 9 on the kit panel and also the two outermost bolts should be indented and not even with the side bolts.

The row of 7 bolt heads (correctly shown as hex bolt heads) on either side of the rear engine deck panel correctly show the rearmost two bolts heads offset inward and all other rivets not mentioned above are correctly depicted so all of this may be purely academic to some but is presented for your info.

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SHERMAN A History of the American Medium Tank R.P.Hunnicutt. Presidio Books ISBN 0-89141-080-5	M3 Lee/Grant Medium Tank 1941-45 Osprey New Vanguard ISBN 1 84176 889 8	Medium Tank M3 to M3A5 General Lee/Grant Tanks in Detail 4 by Terry J Gander.
AFVisual M3 Lee Letterman Publications LP019 By David Doyle	M3 Lee/Grant in action Squadron Signal Publicatrions Armour series #2033	Classic AFV's No.2 Lee & Grant An AIRFIX book
Allied & Axis No.10 M3 Lee Pt.1 Ampersand Publishing	Allied & Axis No.13 M3 Lee Pt.2 Ampersand Publishing	Allied & Axis No.14 M3 Lee Pt.3 Ampersand Publishing

Thanks to my Credit Card and the prompt service from Lucky Model.com for the review kit.