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This
is by far the best M998 HMMWV kit ever made. By the way, HMMWV is the correct
acronym - not HUMMWV or several other variations. The term, Humvee, may or
may not be correct. I am really not sure.
There are several versions of the
Hummer. The type you normally see on CNN is the M1025 Armament Carrier
having either a .50 cal machine gun or a grenade launcher on top. The
M1025 is the HMMWV with sloped back.
By the way, Tamiya
has recently released a 1/35 M1025 that looks really good!
The Academy kit shown here is the M998 Cargo/Troop Carrier
which is actually more common but not nearly as romanticized. It has a tarp that covers the cargo
area. The tarp can be removed along with the supporting bows as I have modeled mine.
The only real shortcoming of this kit is the
lack of interior detail. However, it is the only kit that got the tires
right. Unfortunately, the kit is no longer available, but I was able to
track down six additional models for a large project I have planned for some point
in the future.
This was the first model I built after a very long hiatus
due to lack of building space. I built mine to resemble the vehicle I was
assigned while in the 25th Infantry Division located at Schofield Barracks,
Hawaii.
I spent many years around these vehicles and
have firsthand
knowledge of how wear occurs as well as and photos I took to use
as reference. This was my first attempt at weathering and the first time I ever built a vignette.
Much of the field gear is
built from scratch with the exception of the jerry cans and some of the gear in
the cargo area that comes from various Tamiya accessory kits. I plan to
replace the gear with rolled tissue ala Sheperd Paine. The molded parts
look, well... molded.
The camo poles are made from the plastic shafts
of Q-Tips. They are a little large for scale, but what I had on hand at the
time I build this model. If I had to do it again, I would use smaller
diameter aluminum tubing.
One end of the pole is plugged with a toothpick and has a small hole
drilled in it. The poles are painted, weathered and assembled in different lengths. The spreaders
are made from sheet plastic and glued together in various positions.
In case you are wondering, spreaders are placed on the ends of poles and are used to support camouflage
netting.
The sandbags are made from epoxy putty that is shaped and imprinted with a
handkerchief before they fully harden. They came out on the thin side and
I am not entirely satisfied with them. Otherwise, I was very pleased with
my efforts building this model and it did a lot for my confidence as far as
weathering goes.
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