What's a good/bad LAV kit?

I did a LAV 25 Mortar Carrier by Italeri sometime ago. It was a good kit with no problems.

Cool. I like Italeri. Haven't disappointed me yet except on my hummer wheels [but that's another story]. How's the interior when the top is open?

I have both the Italeri and RoG LAV's. Although they are the same kits, I prefer the RoG because it has current and better decals. The markings in the Italeri kit are out of date.

In 1/35 scale, all the current LAVs are the same basic kit made by Italeri with at least one being reboxed by Revell. They make the LAV-25, LAV-AT, LAV-AD, and the LAV-M mortar carrier.

Esci made an LAV that was not as good. They produced several variants like the LAV-25, LAV-AT and the LAV command carrier. AMT/Ertl also boxed some of these.

I have most of these kits, and my favorite is the LAV-M mortar carrier. This version had more attention paid to the interior since it had the large hatches for the mortar.

There were a couple on e-bay i was debating on and one was a revell and i beleive the other was an ESI. I plan do a U.N. one [as usual] and a deaert one. Probably a LAV25 or the Command one [if there is a difference i haven't reasearched them yet]. i'm partial to armored cars and support vehicles. Been doing them in U.N. colors lately because U.N. vehicles can be from almost any country and be nearly any type of vehicle including civilian. Gives me a lot of variety with vehicles from all over the world to choose from and i like building the more unique vehicles. The U.N. colors just gives them a common theme. Plus I hate masking!LOL

i built the lav 25 tua anti tank kit. no major problems but watch out for the tow hooks on the bottom and the latch handles they are easliy tweezer launched into space. i have been wanting to build he pirana and the mortar ktis to but got way to many in the closet to build now. also if your looking for other kits or conversion go to aef designs and look at their lav conversions sets. oh yeah if you would to see waht i did with the lav 25 i got a few pics i could send ya.

Do the LAV-25 or the LAV-AT kits come with decals or painting guides for Desert Storm? I'd like to paint one of the LAV's that participated in the Battle of Khaffji, that local Iraqi offensive that came before the Coalition attack.

mine came with markings for a usmc saudi arabia 1991 you can have the option of two desert schemes one of them is field green fs 34097 over sand 33531 and the other one was sand 33531. i chose to use amor sand fs 30277 to me the sand 33531 was to light.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Ga.modler mine came with markings for a usmc saudi arabia 1991

Sounds right all right!

Say, you said yours was a 25 with TOW. Isn't that the LAV-AT? The unit that faced the Iraqi tank regiment that night had LAV-25's and LAV-AT's.

They suffered heavily from friendly fire, two of their LAV's being destroyed by US AT missles -- one from an A-10 and one from another LAV. The crews of each vehicle were mostly killed.

The LAV-AT's used their FLIRs to find the T-55's, and directed the LAV-25's fire that them --their guns could not penetrate the T-55's armour, but the tracers showed the A-10's where the Iraqi tanks were. Pretty brave.

What I don't understand is why the LAV-AT's didn't use their missles to knock out the Iraqi tanks. Possibly because you can't accurately guide a TOW missle to the target using a FLIR? The A-10's had a hard time using their Hellfires at night.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Ga.modler i built the lav 25 tua anti tank kit. no major problems but watch out for the tow hooks on the bottom and the latch handles they are easliy tweezer launched into space. i have been wanting to build he pirana and the mortar ktis to but got way to many in the closet to build now. also if your looking for other kits or conversion go to aef designs and look at their lav conversions sets. oh yeah if you would to see waht i did with the lav 25 i got a few pics i could send ya.

Heck yeah, I wanna see em! My e-mail is shadowconvoy@yahoo.com. It should also be on my profile as well.

you got mail martiangundammodler