 1/35 Academy Warrior Peter Battle The kit used for this article is the original 1996 issue by Academy of Korea, which can be built up with or without the add-on armour plates. Built OOB this kit has faults, more so if the distinctive add on armour is to be used, but is a good base to start with for a detail project. (Since then it has been re-issued as an “Iraq 2003” kit, with an additional sprue of stowage, remodified but still to narrow frontal armour, etc, and can be made into a Bosnia based vehicle as well, but many faults have still not been corrected.) I planned to build mine as an Operation Granby vehicle so the earlier kit was ideal for my purpose and I also chose the extra work in using the armour plating. I must mention that my kit was plagued by severe sink marking. I do not know if this is common to all, but few other reviews have mentioned it. All the sink marks were filled and sanded prior to major construction, as were the plethora of ejector pin marks on the parts. In this, I must say, Academy excelled themselves in the number and also the inconvenient placing of ejector pin marks - such as on the face of the recessed episcopes!     The pre-paint pics tell a lot of the story on how the kit was improved. Apart from the detail and correcting work that is visible as a different colour/medium in the photographs, additional correcting work done was: Separating the driver’s side armour panels, filling the openings then made and repositioning them further forward. This also means filling locating holes in hull Scribing the separation lines of the armour plate cover strips on the two side hull armour panels Drilling out the external Fire Extinguisher handle port in the armour plate and adding the t handle Correcting turret hatch hinges and recoil fittings Replacing the poorly depicted kit tools (with modified ones from Academy’s own US tank accessory kit!) Trimming the too wide front transmission housings and filling the resultant gaps in the hull depression.    Camo net is medical gauze with dried basil herb leaves added to give the impression of the scrim nets used. Markings are hand sprayed through masks, the kit items are way over scale, wrong shape, and just don’t stick anyway!  copyright©2006 ausfwerks |