Humvee Resin Wheels
Comparison Review
1:35 Scale
by Terry Ashley

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From there it turned into a full comparison with some of the other resin wheels available as well as those form the new Tamiya HMMWV kit as these are the best wheels from the available kits. I also incuded the resin wheels from Hobby Fan which were included with the limited release HMMWV kit from AFV Club (Kit No. AF35S-04) as I know that some modellers have bought this kit simply for the resin pieces and wheels included. The other wheel sets are from Masters Productions, MR Models, Real Models and the now out of production set from Verlinden. This review has now been updated to include the new radial tyres from Blast Models, CMK and Trakz.
CMK have released an M966 Hummer IDF Conversion set which also includes a set of radial tyres which I have added to this comparison.

Five of the sets have the later radial tyres and three have the earlier bias ply tyres. The comparison did indeed show that the Masters Productions wheels were in fact quite a bit smaller than the others available.
There was also some minor variation in wheel diameter between the others but nothing that would stand out with four of the wheels from AFV Club, Blast Models, Real Models and Tamiya being the exact same diameter while the newer CMK are only fractionally smaller (.05mm) so for all intense and purposes are the same.

The casting quality of all the sets is very good (remembering the Tamiya wheels aren't resin but rubber and plastic) with the Blast Models wheels probably being the best bias ply tyres with the Goodyear embossing on both sides and excellent hub and tread pattern details. (See full review of the Blast Models wheels here.)
The CMK set differs from the others in having the centre hubs as separate parts but does not have any sidewall embossing, the radial tread pattern is also very good with nice shoulder detail and very subtle bulging at the bottom.

The tread pattern on the wheels is also well done but the center hub on the AFV Club and Verlinden wheels are a bit oversized but any of the wheels would certainly improve the Italeri and Academy HMMWV kits. See HMMWV kit comparisons here.

Conclusion:
If you were building the Tamiya kit with the older bias ply tyres then the kit wheels will probably do the job, if you want the later radial tyres the pick was initially either the MR Models or Real Models wheels but the new Blast Models wheels would now be the pick of the crop. The newer CMK are quite good but don't have the sidewall embossing and you have to buy the full conversion set to get them (at this time anyway?).

References:
On the Web:
Rob's Motor Pool at Armorama.com (Excellent detail photos)

	M998 HMMWV in detail Present Vehicle Line No4 Wings & Wheels Publications. Published by RAK, Czech Republic. ISBN 80-86416-14-3 60 pages all in colour.
	7510 HMMWV: Workhorse of the US Army 'Mini Color Series' No 7510 Concord Publications Co. by Carl Schulze ISBN 962-361-676-7 56 pages, 1/35 scale plans
	M998 HMMWV Family Part 1: General Data and Descriptions Military Vehicle Workshop Series MV-11 Allied Command Productions 41 pages in black and white
	M998 HMMWV "HUMMER" and derivatives Warmachines No.7 Military Photo File Verlinden Publications No.600 ISBN 90-70932-27-X 36 pages in colour
	HUMMER Humvee in Action Squadron Signal Publications No. 2032. ISBN 0 89747 323 X By Jim Mesko.

Page created 16 June 2003
Updated 5 July 2003
Updated 14 July 2003 (latest updated text in red)