Tag Archives: Merkava

New to my stash…

Posted on by
Reply

Last weekend I paid visit to my favourite Hobby stores and brought back, as usual, few goodies.

Hobby Boss Merkava ARV

10203981p

This was one of my most expected models to be coming to the stores these days. It is one of those models that few months ago no one even expected to see in plastic. The vehicle itself seems to be representation of one of the versions of the vehicle codenamed NAMER, which is sometimes classified as armoured personnel carrier.

Based on the inspection of the content of the box, I am quite pleased. The quality offered by Hobby Boss seems to be growing with each of their releases. The parts are molded in nice dark grey plastic - somehow I like it more than the beige used for the Merkava 4 kit. The level of detail is in my opinion also higher than on their previous kits, so the only thing that remains to be seen is the fit of the parts. The vehicle itself has number of stowage baskets which are very finely molded, though I believe aftermarket companies will be quick to offer photoetch replacements. The kit was already criticized for lack of detail and accuracy on the crane part. This part of the kit really seems a bit simplified as far as I can say, though I am by no means an expert on IDF vehicles.

Continue reading →

Late for Christmas

Posted on by
Reply

Christmas are almost behind the door, but it seems that season does not end for the armour modellers, rather the other way around. Having visited local hobby stores few times over the past weeks, I was rather surprised there was not really that much new on the shelves. Strangely, there are quite few kits expected in short time and here is the selection of my favourite ones.

sexton

Sexton

It might just be that the kit is late in arriving here in Toronto, as there are already some reviews on the web (see here and here). These have already picked up on some inaccuracies with this kit, nevertheless it is still the first and only model of this vehicle out there. And of course, it is Canadian, so this will be a must buy…

10203981p

Merkava ARV

Another one of those kits, which was once hard to believe it would be available in plastic anytime soon. Not a lot of pictures of the built model are out there and again, first reviews have already found some flaws (see here), but I guess that’s what the reviews are for. Now given that this is Hobby Boss, I am hoping that the quality is going to be better than the Pershing I am just building and it is going to be at least at the level of their Merkava IV.

In any case, kudos to Hobby Boss for bringing it out.

393339

Panzerjaeger Marder II

Bronco is slowly and steadily becoming my most favourite kit producer. The quality of casting is on the par with Dragon, if not better, and their kit’s finesse and complexity is perhaps even higher. One thing that puts them ahead of Dragon is that they are not wasting their efforts on producing just another version of Panzer IV…

This kit is actually one of their few German vehicles and the photos Bronco has released so far are looking promising.

DSC00231

RG-31

Now this is one where I am being cautious. Kinetic has ambitiously expanded into the armour models world not that long ago, but their first pieces disappointed me a bit. I have seen their M109 and frankly, there was so much simplifications and lack of details, that I just passed. I am hoping that RG-31 will be better, much better. And that it can be built into Canadian version…

B_CHC9142_01

Tiger I Early version

Few months ago I would not spare too many words about this release, but after spending some time recently looking at what is at the market, I noticed that with all the different versions of Tiger I that Dragon has released so far, there is one big gap – early version. For anybody interested in building the Tiger I version from the Battle of Kursk or simply non-zimmerit vehicle other than the very early models, old Tamiya’s kit is the only choice. Not bad, but without all the beauty and bells and whistles that the new Dragon kits come with.

One more surprise, and for me as a customer positive one, is the decision to release this kit as part of their Orange box series. I might be missing something, but I just don’t understand why is Dragon not releasing this as regular kit, for which they could ask 80  bucks with a straight face and it would still sell like a Christmas cookies in December (judging based on the success of their other Tigers). But as I have said, I am a buyer and I don’t complain. In January one will definitely be mine…

So what it is that you are waiting for?

Keep ‘em coming

Posted on by
Reply

There were few more good news for the modern armour fans over the past days again.

First Hobby Boss announced another kit which was not really expected. Building on their series of Merkavas which seem to be popular with modellers they have rather quietly added Merkava ARV to their lineup on the web.

Not a lot of details are available at this time, so we might need to wait when will this piece come to the market.

The second announcement is also one of those most welcome and perhaps also overdue. Kinetic model has announced RG-31 to be released in January 2013. The boxart describes the kit to be the US army version, but let’s hope you will be able to make Canadian out of it too.

So if you were thinking about what you would like to see under the Christmas tree, there’s some inspiration.

The tale of two Merkavas – survey results

Posted on by
Reply

It’s been almost 2 months since I published a quick survey to find out which Merkava IIID kit is going to be more popular – Meng or Hobby Boss.

As of today, 28 responses were submitted to the question: “which kit are you going to buy?” and here are the results:

  • Meng kit: 14 votes
  • Hobby Boss: 4 votes
  • Both: 4 votes
  • None: 1 vote
  • Undecided: 5 votes

It seems that Meng kit is winning the “battle of Merkavas” hands down. Given that it is already on the market and the reviews are quite positive, Hobby Boss might have tough time to catch up…

I would like to thank everyone who participated in the survey, the number of responses has surprised me quite a bit to tell the truth (seems that there are actually some people reading this blog).

Meng Merkava IIID is here

Posted on by
Reply

This week I have paid visit to my favourite local hobby store – Hornet Hobbies and finally brought home Meng’s new kit. Being in the process of building Merkava IV by Hobby Boss I decided to try Meng’s kit. Since its release it has been earnings praise all over the web so I wanted to see what the quality really is.

Having a chance to inspect the kit I must say that the first impression is very favourable. The level of detail is high as well as overall quality of moulding. One particular piece over which I have previously voiced my concern was the ball & chain armour at the rear of the turret. Meng provided this moulded in plastic which did not sound very promising. After seeing this part I must however admit that the moulding is extremely well done and will not necessarily require replacement. The only tricky part will be removal of these pars from the sprue as each individual chain & ball has sprue attachment point at its end.

Also as mentioned before, no photoetch is provided as part of the kit, the need for any such part is to be seen. Given the popularity of this kit I believe aftermarket won’t let us wait too long for them.

One particular area, where this kit really stands out in my opinion is quality of instructions. Not only that there is no garbled english translation, Meng has really paid attention to this part, so often overlooked by other producers.

I was personally impressed by the fact that Meng has provided more that just a series of pictures on how to assemble the kit. At the beginning few words from Michael Mass on the birth of this model as well as about the Merkava III tank itself made me feel that Meng does not consider instructions a kit part best suited to cut costs. Instructions itself are well laid out and clear. Colour templates outlining markings and painting also add a nice touch. Unfortunately, one thing I would welcome is the color reference guide for Tamiya paints. For some reason no producer (apart from Tamiya itself) provides this.

Overall I am looking forward to build this kit, there’s already plenty of builds under way on the web, so this should help to address any issues, though it seems there won’t be many of those.

 

Merkava IV – Part 3: Construction (cont’d)

Posted on by
2

When starting this kit I have planned to stick to what is in the box as it seemed there should be enough to build a nice kit with it. Now, as is usually the case, the deeper I get into the construction phase, the more I realize that this or that part should better be replaced with some aftermarket alternative as it really does not meet my standards.

Continue reading →

Merkava IV – Part 2: Construction (still)

Posted on by
Reply

Just a few in-progress pictures from the Merkava IV build. Construction is going bit slow as I am still finishing weathering on other kits and there is a lot of cleaning to be done on this one. At the same time I am deciding which parts of the photoetch set I am going to use and planning the order of construction accordingly.

Continue reading →

Merkava IV – Part 1 : Construction

Posted on by
Reply

Having been inspired by the upcoming releases I decided to start working on the Merkava IV from Hobby Boss while finishing the Ka-Mi (I am in the weathering stage which is sometimes rather lengthy).

I am quite a fan of IDF vehicles (for those who haven’t noticed from my collection of finished models) and Merkava IV was sitting on my shelf since it’s been released.

This kit “enjoyed” its share of negative publicity which affected its sales. The problem with the suspension arms positioning being the most prominent one, there are solutions how this can be fixed, these however require major surgery of the kit parts (lower hull and lower hull armour plate). Somehow I was not keen on getting into this and wanted to build the kit not straight out of the box, but without a lot of converting and scratchbuilding. I decided to get Eduard’s photoetch set for this kit, but as usual will be selective in terms of which parts of it will be used.

Continue reading →

The tale of two Merkavas

Posted on by
9

So just a few days after bringing us preview of the Meng’s Merkava IIID, Terry Ashley of the Perth Military Modelling site is offering the first preview of the other offering of this same vehicle by Hobby Boss. I think this is the first time that we have the chance to actually compare the two kits (as usual big thanks goes to Terry, you can find the both previews here). It would be nice to have a sneak peek into the instruction sets of the two kits, as these usually reveal a lot about the kit itself and its construction. Well, we will have to wait just a bit more for that…

Now, having chance to see the sprues of the two kits, the differences are getting clear. I have already posted my first impressions on the Meng kit here when it was first released (see here). Since I have not had a chance to closely inspect quality of other model kits from Meng, my opinion is purely based on what I can see from the pictures on the web.

With Hobby Boss, I might be actually biased by their Merkava IV kit, which I am building right now.

Continue reading →

Merkavas are (finally) coming

Posted on by
1

So, after a few weeks of waiting, it seems that the waiting for the Merkava IIID model is over. Terry Ashley has yesterday posted preview of the Meng’s Merkava IIID on his PMMS site (see here) and some pictures were also posted on the IDF-modelling.com forum (see here). The first reactions on this forum were strongly positive and the available photos really indicate that the quality of the kit is going to be high.

Having said that, I must admit that having seen the photos on the PMMS site I was bit disappointed. The kit has few shortcomings, which I consider to be important, at least to me:

- Lack of anti-slip surface texture on the turret and hull. While some of the participants on the IDF-modelling forum praised this for giving them opportunity to create their own customized version of the texture, I consider this to be rather significant omission. Frankly I am surprised by this and don’t really understand what is the reason why this was omitted.

With all the criticism aimed at the mistake in Hobby Boss Merkava IV kit – wrong layout of the wheels (Merkava IV does not use torsion bar system), I consider the omission of the anti-slip texture to be of the same magnitude – both can be fixed, but it’s rather time-consuming exercise. And while the wrong layout on the HB’s Merkava IV is difficult to spot (and I can already hear all the Merkava rivet counters protesting loudly), missing anti-slip texture is hard to miss.

- No photoetch parts. I know that I am being spoiled by all the recent multimedia kits with photoetch parts included (though the quality is sometimes dubious), these kits simply set the standard these days. And in a time, when average model kit sells for $60+, I do expect more than some years ago.

- Ball and chain armour molded in plastic. Now if nothing else, this is definitely part that will need to be replaced. While the quality of moulding is nice, it is nowhere close to the solutions which Legend conversions have been offering for years now.

But to be fair, I must also point out the qualities of the kit – as already mentioned, the quality of moulding seems to be very high. The tracks are especially to be mentioned, as they seem to be very cleanly cast with intricate details and extremely fine casting lettering. What remains to be seen is the price, which might become important, especially since HB’s version of the very same vehicle is to be released in few months…

Another Merkava IIID

Posted on by
Reply

Another surprise that I just accidentally stumbled upon when browsing armorama site – another Merkava IIID is in the oven, this time from Hobby Boss. Few pictures are available at this time.

What is interesting, based on the discussion posts, Hobby Boss plans to fix their issue with the chassis of Merkava IV. If only that would be true…