Hello all,
Any advice on a good Lee or Grant kit? I’m familiar with the old Tamiya kit which isn’t bad, but seems simplistic by today’s standards.
I’m not a real rivet counter, and can deal with some inaccuracies as long as the kit goes together well. Buildability is important to me.
I know that Academy makes one, but my past experiences with their aircraft kits has left me a little gun shy.
Any advice or opinions are welcome, thank you!
The highly anticipated Academy M3 Grant and Lee tanks were universally reviled when they finally arrived.
Right now, I believe the Takom M3 Lee series is supposedly the best. It has been issued in several versions, mid and late as well as the cast M3A1.
One thing about the Tamiya M3 Lee is that it is the Diesel engined M3A2 version. That variant mostly saw service Lend Lease with the Soviets. It’s only US combat use was on Makin island in 1943.
I had fun with all the Tamiya and Academy Lee/Grants. I’m not that obsessed with the overall accuracy issues any longer. Sort of outgrew those issues. No one I knew cared. Heck, I even liked the old Airfix/Monogram Lee/Grants kits. They were very easy to build. They sure looked like them. Nice and ugly!
For accuracy, Takom, like Rob said. I have yet to do one, but everything I’ve seen or read is good, and they’re on par with Tamiya kits for ease of assembly.
I picked up the Takom M3 Lee mid a year ago for less than $40 delivered. I have not gotten to the kit, but it basically made me put the other Lee kits away. It has long been one of my favorite tanks.
The Tamiya M3 is very toylike compared to the Takom kit. The list of inaccuracies is long.
The price of a Tamiya Lee or Grant isn’t much different than the new and better Takom kits.
I loved the old Airfix 1/32 scale ones, but sold the unbuilt ones off when I picked up the Academy ones. Some of the early Academy ones had messed up suspension bogies. They originally sent corrected ones out in the beginning, but now require payment to get the right suspension.
The title of this post is “Best 1/35 M3 Lee/Grant?” and right now, the best one is the series by Takom. It’s also the line that covers the most variants.
I liked the Acadmy one because it had an interior which was a new thing.
I built the Academy M3 Lee a few years ago, and apart from some trouble with the suspension (which apparently had correction parts included in the kit, but not called in the instructions,) it went together smoothly. I too was not overly concerned with accuracy and while I don’t doubt that newer kits like the Takom are more accurate and perhaps easier builds, I got the Academy version on eBay for a song, so it had that going for it.
I’ve had some good experiences with Academy lately - their Merkava Mk.IV LIC kit was pretty sweet, as was their M1A2 TUSK Abrams. Their Panzer IV was super old and far from perfect, but at $17, I couldn’t complain too loudly, even if it’ll eventually wind up as parts for Paper Panzer projects.
Thanks to everyone for the replies, I appreciate it.
Sounds like the Takom kit is to way to go. My LHS didn’t have one, so I’ll look around online.
Thanks again!
The Tamiya M-3 is the M-3A5 riveted hull version which had the GM 6046 diesel. The M-3A2 was the welded hull with the Wright/Continental R975 of which only 12 were made.