M-1 Abrams

the Academy M1a1 is reasonably priced, and somewhere along the road i have seen an M1engine, try looking at bentbutnotbroken.com, it might have been in there somewhere.

Lee,

Cool! My advice, go with the Trumpeter Abrams. Its got the most detail for the best price (just picked one up from ebay for $15!) Some parts need to be worked with (the headlight guards are about twice as thick as they need to be. It has a removable engine deck, but none of the available kits have engines. Verlinden did do an engine. I've seen a few on ebay lately. Seem to go for about $25-30. I picked up the Verlinden interior for mine too. Pretty crappy detail for what you're paying. No gun breech, no gunner's station.

For ease of building, the Tamiya Abrams is the way to go. The detail is a bit finer in some areas, while not as good in others. Yet for ease of construction, you can't beat it. The kit usually sells for about $30.

Hope that helps!

My local shop carries the DML Abrams kits (they produce four different ones). They are marked at about $18 and are some of the better M1A1/A2 kits out there.

Trumpeter also makes 3 or 4 M1A1/A2 kits and they are very nice kits themselves. They run under $20 and have various options like mine plow or mine roller.

Tamiya makes the M1A1 with and without plow. It is the easiest to build but are not very accurate, especially if you want to do an Gulf War 2 tank. These are quite expensive, over $30.

Academy's is a cheap knock off of the Tamiya kit, they added a few detail items. Mine cost less than $20.

Italeri has just released a new M1A2 kit. Brand new tool and it looks pretty good. Mine cost me $20 + $5 shipping from someone online. Looks to be the best of the lot, but don't discount the DML kits. They still hold up nicely.

Trumpeter's are the best overall value, 2 sets of track per kit, mine roller or mine plow (depending on boxing).

Avoid the Esci M1 or M1A1. They were also boxed by AMT/Ertl. Not worth the plastic.

Thanks guys, much appreciated.
Lee

Hi,
Awhile back there was an article in FSM that the author used a Dragon kit, it looked pretty
good and with his (easy) adds it turned out great. Now if I could find the There was another
Photo Showcase around the same time that an ex-tanker did with the engine pulled and
commanders cupola off. Looked great except the 50 was still mounted, It should have been
locked in the company arms room!!!!! Check 'em out it will be worth the hunt,
Good Hunting,
rdxpress

How reliable are the trumpeter m1 kits? I'm still wary about any kits made over in the PRC. Are there any flash or inaccuracies, etc? Any input would be helpful, thanks.

Academy has a real nice A2 for about $18. Just saw it the other day and will have to go back and pick it up before they all dissapear. I put several of their A1 kits together several years ago, and it was a dream.

Has anybody checked out the cover on July's FSM issue! Didn't catch who made it, but it is already on my must have list. AWESOME!!!!!

Firstly, Major G, THANK YOU FOR THE LINK!!!!!

I've needed some good turret interior shots and that just made my day. Its gonna be 2 years before I get my own Abrams platoon to command, so seeing the interior really helped a lot with the model I'm workin on.

Laxman, the Trumpeter kit is really good. The only problem I had was the headlight guards are waaaaay too thick. The rest of the kit is great. Looks like they copied both the Tamiya and DML kits in certain cases. Its kinda funny seeing the loader figure with an oxygen hose connected to the scarf he's wearing!
Either that, or it was a really poor attempt at a commo lead....

Can't WAIT to see the new issue. Really looking forward to the article!