Academy

1/35 M3 Lee "Bolted Hull"

Kit Number: 13206

Reviewed by  Howie Belkin, IPMS# 16

MSRP: $42.00 411 green styrene parts, 2 one-piece flexible/glue-able tracks. Available from retail and mail order shops. Academy's site is www.academy.co.kr . Like far too many WWII allied military vehicles, there hasn't been a "state of the art" M3 Lee Medium Tank until now, with Academy's kit. The M3 medium was bloodied at the Kasserine Pass but with lessons learned, helped save the day in N. Africa, offering superior fire power, protection and mobility to anything else at the time. This Lee version was tall with a commander's cupola while the Grant had a lower, wider turret. More than 6,000 were built making it far more significant than many of the German vehicles that have been produced as models. It was followed and replaced by the M4 Sherman, both of which played a major role in outfighting the Desert Fox, forcing the surrender of the Afrika Korps in a defeat comparable to that of the fall of Stalingrad. The M3 served with the British, Americans and Russians and in the Pacific theatre as well. I generally avoid some of the websites dominated by "experten" who will never be pleased with some of these great models that have been coming out. This M3 Lee is no exception - it's not perfect but it sure is exceptional! One thing I did learn on the net was that Academy consulted Steve Zaloga, Stephen "Cookie" Sewell and Frank DeSisto before producing the kit, and they generally did right by all of us. When I opened the box I exhaled an ecstatic "aaaah!" First impression, I was blown away by the kit interior. If you've ever intended to or have built an M3, you must have looked at those huge side doors and thought that you had to build the model with an interior! Probably half the kit's parts go inside the tank! Academy provides plenty including tread plate pattern floors, transmission, gearshift levers, foot pedals, radios, ammo, well detailed 75mm with choice of long or short barrel and 37mm, both "slide molded" with hollow bore barrels and fully detailed breech and mount, turret basket "and more." The machine guns are nicely done but not hollowed out nor are ammo boxes or belts provided. The interior is fairly complete except for some wiring. Osprey Vanguard 6 Lee/Grant Tanks in British Service and Jim Mesko's M3 Lee/Grant in Action have great interior references (though the former features the Grant turret). The hull is molded so the sponsons seal up but there's an oval cutout in the bottom that even though the floor has a plug to fill it, still needs a little putty. A supplemental sheet shows how the bogie wheels assemble: dry fit to see how the double spring part A6 goes. Hold off step 5 parts B6 and 7 until close to the end to get a perfect fit with the front fenders. The hull top is broken down into several panels that have to align nicely to avoid cleaning up or putty. This makes it simple for Academy or an after market company to provide parts to convert this to different variants of the M3 (i.e. on a later version the side doors were eliminated) but requires a little work. The placement of all of the armored gas caps is not exactly clear. I found that the 75mm ammo locker topped with Tommy gun round ammo drums could be glued close to the rear bulkhead, or the front of it will be in the open side doorway. Hit your spares box for a Tommy gun or two. Step 12 guides you to assemble the 75mm - note that the two top steps go first, then the bottom left and bottom right, in that order. You have to have decide on long or short barrel. Part D38's extension arm for an adjusting wheel is too long - shorten it or it will bang into the driver's seat. For that matter, part D27 the arm holding the gunner's seat is too long too. Step 15 positioning the excellent coaxial machine gun parts is unclear so you'll have to dry fit and file a little (all the 30 cal's need the barrel drilled out). Step 16 is on that supplemental sheet showing a correctly shaped part D28 but exactly where it goes is unclear. Step 18 confused me as there's a square bulge on the turret side, just under the cupola and an illustration that shows gluing hatch part D52 onto a shaded square area on the turret side. Well, I mistakenly glued the hatch onto the square bulge when it belongs on the other side of the turret (it would be correct on some Grant versions). Some reviewers state that the bulge did exist on some Lees but was unusual, and others suggest you sand it down. The turret has less interior detail than the hull, i.e. there is no internal view-port detail. Before you assemble the hull top to the bottom make sure you glued the instrument panel and twin .30 cal machine guns (if your particular M3 had them - mine didn't) to the inside. With all that interior detail I opened most hatches and view ports. The few ejection marks are generally hidden but the perfectionist will find them. The rear engine access doors and access panel on the engine deck (with molded screen) are separate parts in case you want to drop in an engine. The gun metal colored one piece flex tracks glued with cyano and accelerator and dry brushed with enamel paint. The rear stowage boxes have a separate lid if you need something else to open up! Separate tow cable ends are provided but there is no string to complete them. The brush guards for the head-lamps are included and useable and the "glass" is a separate green part. I chose to hollow out the headlights a little more than they are, painted silver then filled with Crystal Clear (an MV lens would have been even better). A complete additional set of standard "Sherman Series" suspension bogies and wheels from Academy is included, but since neither of these Lees had barrel counterweights (according to illustrations in Mesko's book), none are provided. I finished mine as O.D., long 75mm barreled "After Effect" of the 1st Armored Division, 13th Armored Regiment at Bizete, Tunisia with yellow stars and black "3" outlined in white on the turret, no yellow turret band, and blue-grey serial. Academy may have used Jim Mesko's color side views as reference which they followed to a "T". One reviewer stated that this serial number is shown incorrectly (it matches the above reference) while another stated the serial is wrong entirely. Blame Jim Mesko, not Academy! Decals for "Kentucky" are also provided (use the short barrel 75mm) and somebody else already lamented that Humphrey Bogart's "Lulubelle" in the movie "Sahara" would be nice to model. Remember that excellent "Sahara" diorama at the Albuquerque Nationals? Academy's decals are thin yet let me move them around in a puddle of Future, with the clear carrier film disappearing under my flat coat. This is a great, modeler friendly kit fairly priced when you consider you get an almost complete interior. You don't have to buy any aftermarket sets to build an awesome model. And you're not buried under 1,000 daunting parts! All tank manufacturers could improve their kits if they included a poly insert for the drive and idler wheels, and an additional page or two of instructions so they can include idiot proof (ahem) drawings showing the exact placement of parts. The kits of old used to name the parts as well as number them, which is a personal preference I'd love to see revived. Thanks to distributor Model Rectifier Corp. for the review sample and Academy for doing an excellent job on a long over due model of a major Allied vehicle. Now if they'd only turn towards the U.S. M2-M3 series half tracks and many variants: with their state of the art molding Academy will make many a modeler mighty happy! References: · "Sherman: A History of the American Medium Tank", by R.P. Hunnicutt. · Osprey New Vanguard 113, "M3 Lee/Grant Medium Tank 1941-45", Steve Zaloga. · Osprey Vanguard 6, "The Lee/Grant Tanks in British Service", by Bryan Perrett. · Concord 7051, "US Tank Battles in North Africa and Italy 1942-45. · Squadron Armor in Action 33, "M3 Lee/Grant", by Jim Mesko.

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