The Sheridan’s last hurrah was the deployment of 51 by the 82nd Airborne Division during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm as some of the first tanks sent with their role limited to reconnaissance by age and light armour, but several Shillelagh missiles were fired at Iraqi bunkers.
This new kit from Academy is basically the original kit #13011 with a few upgrades and additional parts to bring it up to M551A1 standard but still incorporates the dimensional errors of the first kit.
There is a new large sprue F with some replacement parts and the new A1 parts as well as the weapons sprue form their Machine Gun Accessory set that provides a couple of additional .50cal MGs and a .30cal MG plus a selection of other bits.
The kit consists of 380 parts in light tan plastic plus a large sheet of meshing for the turret basket, a set of full length vinyl tracks and the decal and instruction sheet for a fairly conventional kit by today’s standards.
The standard of moulding on the parts is fairly well done but there are quite a few shallow pin parks on the inside of the hatches and on the new armour shields for around the cupola while there are some nice weld seam and bolt/rivet head detail on the turret and hull and the plastic barrel which is also hollowed out to a depth of 8mm and does give a good hollow impression with such a large calibre weapon.
There are a few dimensional errors as mentioned carried over from the first kit with the most notable the rear hull contours and there is little you can do with this unless undertaking a major rebuild.
When compared to the plans from the Hunnicutt Sheridan book the upper rear hull bend is about 4mm too far back resulting in the rear hull angle being slightly too steep.
The other is the complicated shape of the turret which again when compared to the Hunnicutt plans and those in the Squadron book shows a few angles different from the kit turret, but much of this is at the rear and is mostly hidden when the large turret basket is fitted so it’s up the individual if these profile discrepancies are of concern?
Also separate is the bolted armour panel at the bottom of the hull front with raised section underneath to represent the added armour and towing shackles on the front and rear hull.
The front hull has been “enhanced” with new mounting brackets for the tow shackles which require you to cut off the old distorted brackets from the hull for the replacements which does give a better look here.
The road wheels have inner and outer wheels as is normal but the wheel contours are slightly out with the rim bolts slightly too small and don’t really look much like the real Sheridan road wheels. On the new sprue is an additional spare road wheel that has much better rim contours and it’s a pity Academy didn’t update the other wheels with this style as it would have overcome this shortcoming.
The drive sprockets and idler wheels are basically the same except for the toothed sprocket trapped between the inner and outer drive sprockets but the central hubs on the drive sprockets are too shallow and should extend further out than those on the idler wheels. You also get replacement idler wheel axles and mountings with better contours from those in the first kit.
The rotating driver’s hatch is a separate part with solid periscopes that lack a little bit of detail and the hatch can be fixed in the open or closed position as you wish.
Other separate hull details are the front head lights with separate bush guards and rear lights, lifting eyes and small flat panels that fit around the rear tail light recesses to add the details that would have been difficult to achieve due to the sloped rear hull plate and also the pioneer tools on the right rear hull.
The laser rangefinder transceiver is added in front of the cupola along with the cable cover that runs around the right side of the cupola as well as a new square thermal light to replace the round one from the first kit.
The large mantlet is a complicated cast part and includes the nice bolt pattern around the gun opening but some of the contours are slightly out such as above the co-ax MG opening but this is getting picky. The large missile guidance box sits on top of the mantlet. The barrel is the closed breech scavenger system type and is in three parts with the larger diameter section with bolted collar and outer tube section which looks quite good.
New smaller smoke grenade launcher tubes are provided to replace the large launchers form the first kit but these all had small sink marks on the ends which will need attention and the mountings are a little simplified but these are hidden under the turret overhand in any case. There is a new rear turret basket with thin plastic frames that just have fine moulding lines to be removed with the mesh provided cut these the right size using the templates included in the instructions.
Also provided are the ACAV style shields for the commander’s cupola which consist of the front fixed shield and rear three sided shield with separate opening panel as well as the two smaller side panels and all these attach to large MG mounting fitted to the top of the cupola. There is also the larger shields added around the back of the cupola but these have many pin marks on the inside to be removed before fitting.
As mentioned there is the additional .50cal MGs included with a choice of mountings and these are an improvement over the earlier gun as well as a selection of 20mm ammo boxes and water cans as nearly always seen fitted to the turrets of Gulf War Sheridans.
1. “DRIFTER”, 82nd Airborne Division, Iraq 1990
2. “DIE HARD”, 82nd Airborne Division, Iraq 199
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Thanks to my credit card and 
for
the review kit.
Page created April 29, 2007
