CyberHobby M46 Patton - 1:35

[Mike]

M46 Patton
1:35 Cyber Hobby

The Patton was a medium tank named after the famous WWII General Patton, which was the immediate replacement for both the Pershing and Sherman the former seeing limited action at the very end of the war, the latter becoming more outclassed as the war dragged on. It's design was originally specified as a heavy tank with the coding M26, but due to the weight of changes to the tanks design, which included a new main gun and power plant to replace the underpowered unit that had plagued the Pershing, it was deemed sensible to change it's designation.

The tank saw service in the Korean War, where it proved superior to the limited number of its predecessors that were fielded during the conflict, and took out a significant number of Korean T-34s. It came to be seen as a stop-gap before the introduction of a more capable platform, so only saw limited updates in the shape of the A1 variant, which had improved electrics, transmission and braking, as well as new fire-suppression gear. It was finally retired from US service in 1957 in favour of the M47 Patton, the M48 Patton(confusing!), and eventually the more long-lived M60 Patton that stayed in service until the introduction of the M1 Abrams.

The Kit
This is a reboxing of Dragon's older tooling of the Patton (the first one!), with the addition of a set of figures depicting American GIs during the battle of the Pusan Perimeter between UN forces and the North Koreans in 1950. The box is the typical Cyber-Hobby orange and white, with a side profile of the tiger-striped Patton on the front, with a small rendering of the boxtop painting of the figures in the top right. Inside are 12 sprues of light grey styrene, a lower hull in the same styrene, a set of Dragon "Magic Tracks" in their ground-breaking flexible styrene, a small decal sheet in separate ziplok bag, and a small glossy folded instruction booklet printed in colour. The styrene is typical of Dragon production from 1995 when it was first released, but there is some quite impressive casting texture present on the turret and mantlet. A few of the sprues have other variants on their info tabs, such as the road-wheels and suspension, which are shared with the M26, and the barrel from the M26A1. Given the age of the tooling, this is quite a nice kit that should build up into an impressive model, particularly given the yellow tiger-striped upper hull and turret that is called for by the decal sheet.

Unusually for a tank kit, the lower hull is missing its rear section, which is added after being built up from separate sides, incorporating the rear bulkhead and final drive housings. The rest of the hull has the suspension mounts moulded in, and the stanchions for the return rollers moulded in, plus a rear section of the underside, which is studded with access-hatches that would have been either more difficult or more expensive to mould integrally with the rest of the hull. The paired road-wheels and identical idlers wheelsare built up from two parts, and have a well-defined rim that should aid painting, with the return-rollers built the same way, while the drive sprockets are built from a pair of cicular central sections to which the outer toothed wheels are added. These aren't keyed, so a scrap diagram shows the correct orientation. The suspension arms are keyed and numbered differently to ensure the correct arm is installed on the right mount, and damper struts are added to the front road-wheel and the two rearmost stations. The tracks are the flexible-styrene type, which are too nice to be called "rubber-band", as they are both nicer to work with, and better moulded due to the technology used. They have separate guide-horns too, which are supplied on two small sprues and are glued in place individually using ordinary styrene glue. The sprues for these are marked T28, which is the unsuccessful super-heavy tank with four tracks that Dragon kitted some time ago. It's only interesting as I happen to have one in the stash, and it's worth Googling just to see one of the weirdest tanks that has been built over the years. The tracks are probably the same in that case, but there's no way of telling unless I was to dig my kit out and risk a stashalanche. Bronco are soon to release a set of plastic working tracks, and Friul already have a set for the Pershing and Patton tanks, in case you're interested in replacements.

The upper hull is a single basic part with masses of moulded in louvers on the rear deck, and a restrained casting finish on the glacis plate. The bow-mounted machine gun and driver's hatch are added first, with small parts glued to the engine deck, including a non-functioning travel lock for the main gun. To the front are the light clusters and their protective fenders, which need to be adjusted to fit the slope of the glacis plate, as detailed in a scrap diagram to the side of their installation diagram. The fenders are added after the hull halves are brought together, and stowage is added to the left with pioneer tools mounted on frames along the right fender. At the back is a two part exhaust and rear muffler, which has a hollow exit pipe, and a large box surrounding it to keep the crew from burning themselves. Towing eyes are attached to the back, and the hull is then complete.

The turret is nicely moulded as mentioned earlier, with some very well done casting texture already present. The seam between upper and lower halves will need some remedial work to hide it later, as it cuts across the textured area, so get the liquid glue and Tamiya putty ready. The similarly textured mantlet fits to a back-plate that has the pivots glued to the rear, and it is offered up to the aperture at the front of the turret, with optional searchlight mounted top centre. The 90mm main gun is styrene, and split vertically down the length, including the flash-hider/brake on the muzzle, and here a metal replacement might well be in order if you don't like hiding seams on cylindrical barrels. The coaxially mounted machine gun is provided as a short tube, which is presumably the armoured shield around the barrel, but there is nothing within, although there is an un-shrouded barrel at A34 you could possibly press into service? The commander's cupola, hatch and gunner's hatch are both simple affairs, with the gunner's hatch looking a bit basic by modern standards. The vision blocks in the cupola are moulded in with no clear parts, so a coat of silver with a top coat of transparent blue/green would be your best bet to get around this omission. Various lifting hooks, radio mast bases, brackets and stowage racks are added around the turret sides, plus a shell ejection port on the right side, all of which have very fine location points marked on the styrene. A simple commander's M2 machine gun on pintle mount is supplied, which could possibly be updated with an inexpensive set from RB Models. The turret then twists into the hull to lock in place on the bayonet lugs moulded into the bottom of the turret.

Figures

The figures provided in the box were originally released as set 6808, and there are four GIs in various poses. One is crouched and running with rifle ammo box in hand, another is doing the same, but with a machine gun over his shoulder, while a third is stooping and cradling his M1 Garand rifle in both hands ready to use it. The forth figure is kneeling and drawing a bead on an imaginary foe with his rifle. Their garb is still pretty close to WWII standards, with little in the way of protection other than their steel helmets. Sculpting is good, and although they aren't to Gen2 standards, they should build up into pretty useful figures for dioramas etc.

Markings
Only two schemes is provided with the kit, but as usual with armour, it's not difficult to portray almost any vehicle using generic codes and unit markings. You can build one of the following from the box:

• 6th Tank Regiment, 24th Infantry Division, Han River, Korea 1951 – khaki drab with yellow tiger-stripe paintwork on the frontal surfaces of the turret and hull.
• 1st Marine Division, Chang Dan, Korea, 1952 Overall Khaki Drab with white C25 on the turret sides and glacis plate.
  

Decals are printed by Cartograf, and are of excellent quality as you would expect. The tiger's eyes and mouth are provided in black, red and white, but you'll need to paint the turret and upper hull with the yellow and grey/black stripes. Colour call-outs are in Gunze Sangyo codes, as you'd expect from Dragon/Cyber-Hobby.

Conclusion
Not a state-of-the-art kit, but a decent one with some nice additions that should satisfy your desire for a Korean era Patton. Detail is pretty good despite the original tooling's age, and even out of the box it should build into an impressive model, especially if you give it the tiger-stripes treatment.

Recommended.

Review sample courtesy of
UK distributors for

[Panzer Vor!!!]

Oh yes I,ll have to look out for one of theses very nice !!!!

[Antoine]

Magic tracks?

Those are DS tracks to me, Mike.