Introduction:
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.
The Kit:
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?
Lower Hull:
The lower hull tub has a large oval hole in the bottom but there is also a plug to fill this and is supposed to represent the lower escape hatch but is devoid of detail but all the suspension parts of axles, shock absorbers and final drives are separate parts for good detail definition.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.
Tracks:
These are continuous length vinyl with details on both sides but the links are slightly too narrow and they don’t have the rubber pads, just indentations and replacement tracks would improve the look of the kit such as the set from Friulmodel (set #ATL-87) which also include replacement metal drive sprockets to correct the kit parts. There are additional plastic spare tracks provided on the new sprue which do include the rubber pads as well as minor pin marks on each link to be removed.
Upper Hull:
The large upper hull is a single moulding with well defined panel and bolt head details on the top surfaces as well as the side panels with the rear shape discrepancies as mentioned above, the left front fire extinguisher handle cut-out ring is also way too small and too high up but this should be quite fixable.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 Turret:
This is split in the conventional upper shell and lower portion with turret ring and as mentioned has some discrepancies in turret outline but also has some nicely done weld seams around the roof panel joins and has the commander’s cupola and loader’s hatches separate. The commander’s cupola has fairly plain periscope details but has the upper cupola ring and two part hatch as separate parts for quite good details and there are also separate forward ventilator cover and main sighting assembly with separate cover.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.
Decals:
The decal sheet is well printed with thin carrier film and has markings for two 82nd Airborne Sheridan’s finished in overall desert sand with unit insignia, the chevron markings on the sides and vehicle names carried on the barrel tube.1. “DRIFTER”, 82nd Airborne Division, Iraq 1990
2. “DIE HARD”, 82nd Airborne Division, Iraq 199
Conclusion:
This is basically the same kit as before with the same dimensional errors on the hull and turret but some of the surface detail is quite nicely done and the inclusion of the updated A1 parts at least brings it up to the configuration for the Gulf War version.The tracks really need replacing and there is a fair bit of work needed to make an accurate model of the Sheridan but the basics are there to work with.
Recommended. 7/10
