First Look Review
Kit No.00324 British 155mm AS-90 self-propelled howitzer
by Terry Ashley
The
kit:
This consists of 297 parts in a dark olive green plastic, a length of twine,
a small sheet of mesh, poly caps for the wheels and two lengths of vinyl track,
the decal sheet and obviously the instruction sheet.
The quality of the mouldings is excellent with no evident flash although there
is some minor cleanup required on some parts and some impressive pin ejector
marks on others (more on that later) but overall there are no problems. The
parts show good details with weld seams around the turret and hull, plus nice
bolt head details along with engraved lines where applicable, there are also
some small parts requiring careful handling.
The
Lower Hull/Suspension:
The lower hull tub is just that; a simple tub with no added details, while this
sounds boring it is because every part of the suspension is in separate parts.
The suspension attachment points are fitted to indentations on the hull sides
and attached to these are the axles and road wheels. The return rollers and
their mountings are also separate parts as are the idler wheel attachment points,
shock absorbers and final drive housings. The idler and road wheels have a poly
caps trapped between the two halves while the drive sprockets are glued direct
to the final drives axles, the sprockets also have bolt head detail on the inside
of both the inner and outer sprockets. The road wheels also have separate centre
hubs for good definition. The result of all these separate parts is a well detailed
suspension assembly.
The
Upper Hull:
The one piece upper hull moulding has nice details including weld seams, bolt
details and the large intake grills over the engine compartment. There are many
smaller items added to the hull front including panel hinges and handles as
well as a 9 part barrel travel lock on the hull front and multipart indicator
light assemblies on each fender. The main head lights also have separate “glass’
pieces and while these are in the same olive plastic it allows you to paint
them before attaching for good definition. The light guards don’t have
the small front bars but as these are very thin on the real vehicle they would
be way over scale if provided and it is easy to add these from thin sprue, so
this isn’t really a problem.
On the rear hull there is a multipart rear panel with the large door as a separate
part which also includes details on the inside of the door. This is where the
pin ejector marks are evident, these are either raised above the surface or
indented on raised detail which makes them east to remove or fill. There are
also numerous parts added to the inside of the door if this is shown open?
The full length side skirts have nice details as well as separate front and
rear mud flaps; these could do with thinning at the edges for a better scale
appearance.
The
Turret:
The turret is one large moulding which again has weld seam detail along the
front panel joins as well as around the hatch coamings, with a separate rear
plate and lower section. As with the hull all the details are separate parts
from the top hatches which also have details on the inside, although there are
more of the pin ejector marks here. They are easy to remove as they are in the
raised pads which are above the other details and the hatches can be shown open
or closed as you wish? The rear plate also has separate details including the
large auxiliary power unit with nice louver and bolt head details on the parts.
The large side storage boxes are also multipart for good definition. The large
storage ‘cage’ on the turret roof uses the mesh provided on its
sides and there are other smaller parts to be added. The 7.62mm GPMG and the
front plate smoke discharges have fairly bland details compared to some of the
other parts.
The
155mm Gun:
The large mantlet/gun mount is a multipart assembly with nice details on the
parts as a result, with this assembly fitting inside the turret mounting which
again has nice details including weld seam and bolt details.
With the main gun you can either model the 39 calibre or the 52 calibre cannon,
this is achieved by providing the 39 calibre gun in two halves with the usual
join seam to remove as is normal kit design and a separate concertina covering
between the mantlet and fume extractor, this doesn’t have the characteristic
sag as seen on most photos but has good ‘fold’ definition while
the large muzzle break is integral with the two barrel halves and looks good
with the characteristic concave end section. To model the 52 calibre gun you
are provided with two ‘inserts’ that fit between the concertina
covering and fume extractor to achieve the longer barrel length, simple but
effective.
The
Tracks:
These are of the continuous length vinyl type and have nice details on both
sides including clear gaps between each track link and the centre section. These
should look nice on the model and as there is no ‘sag’ on AS-90
tracks these would be perfectly adequate.
The
Instructions:
There are in the usual exploded view drawings common with main steam kits (except
Dragon of course) and are easy to follow.
Conclusion
Overall this is a very nice kit with some nice details to build into a large
impressive model, like any kit there is room for improvement or additional details
to be added.
I may be a little biased here but I think this is a really ‘sexy’
looking vehicle as are the other two current generation British AFVs, the Warrior
and Challenger II and it’s great to see this vehicle now in plastic.
The inclusion of the alternate barrel length gives some variety and a good excuse
to buy two kits, that’s if modern armour fans needed an excuse?
Click here for a full construction review of the kit with images of the finished model.
Page Created 9 January 2003