Trumpeter

1/35 Japanese Ground Special Defense Force Reconnaissance Vehicle Type 87

Kit Number: 0327

Reviewed by  Bruce Drummond, IPMS# 37265

MSRP: $24.95 I was excited when I brought this kit home mostly due being "Germaned out". It was refreshing to do something different and a relatively obscure subject kit like this provided the right venue I needed. This kit was built Out of Box. Box The box art is impressive if that is what sells you on a kit. When opened, there was quite an impressive array of parts, 290 parts in all. There are also included 3 nicely done figures included. The breakdown is as follows: 3 frets of figures and gear with 53 pcs, 1 fret of photo etch with 16 pcs, 1 fret of vision blocks with 14 pcs, upper and lower hull, upper turret, rope (for tow cable), 3 steel axles and finally 2 frets of vehicle parts with 201 parts. Not many compared to some kits, but enough to build quite a nice vehicle. Initial view I do not generally do not do modern vehicles. Then I saw them - steel axles! I began to shudder and think of the older kits from years ago like the Monogram, Tamiya and Bandai electric motor kits. I thought here we go again but wait, hard plastic, lots of pieces, some photo etch and a couple of decent figures - boy, was I wrong! Construction The wheels are of the 2 piece type and fit is dead on with minimal cleanup. Make plans for fitting and gluing of the suspension in one session. After completing the suspension parts I inserted the steel axles for alignment (you have to slide the wheels on to aid in alignment). I did not glue them as yet because I keep them off to aid in painting both the hull and the wheels. I had a slight problem that arose here. In my case, the center wheels on both sides would not touch the 'ground' and had I had to fiddle with the suspension to make it so. If you plan on putting this vehicle on a base with ground work, then you needn't tweak the wheels and suspension as the difference in height of the center wheel to the ground is minimal. At this point you will need to add the 2 front PE splash guards. After a little fiddling and tweaking these front splash guards were finally on. They both required a little putty to fill the small gaps left. I then added the rear hull plate. I then went to work on the 2 rear storage baskets before mounting them to the rear plate. One is a 3 piece affair and the other a 2 piece, they will need to be glued and the seams carefully filled. They were then sanded and filed to represent continual bars. It was at this point I decided to mount the vision blocks. I sprayed around their enclosures on the upper hull and hatches with their final color. When the painted parts were dry all the blocks were glued in place. When they were dry, I covered them with a tacky tape to protect them. I then glued the upper and lower hulls together. All hatches were then glued in place. Since this kit has no interior I opted to keep them closed. (In my opinion, this kit would be a top of the line kit if Trumpeter had included a full interior). The rest of the hull parts were added except the tools which were added after the overall painting was completed. The turret goes together well with a little minor filling to fill any seam gaps. Again I closed the hatches. All additional parts were then added and the turret mounted to the chassis. Painting I decided on the kit painting guide as the format to follow and therefore used a four-color scheme using ModelMaster paint. It was the typical Sand, 2 shades of Green and a Light Brown. Thinning each color to a slightly lighter shade I airbrushed over the original color to fade it somewhat. The tires were painted with Polly-S Scale Black, dry brushed and when dry, added to the chassis permanently. A wash of Sepia oils was then applied overall which toned down the brighter colors (I think some modelers call these applications filters). Burnt Umber and Black oils were again used to pick out and/or highlight various details and when all was dry the wheels were then added. Overall I would recommend this kit to anyone. It is a "shake and bake" kit essentially and is a reasonably priced kit. There is just enough photo etch for those just diving into that media. It was a fun build over a week's time.

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