Before I decided to buy Academy Lee and Grant kits I had carefully read Terry Ashley's reviews, so I thought that I made informed decision and knew what I'm getting into. I ordered two of suspension correction sets from Formations even before both kits arrived and I also have a set of Dragon WE210 tracks ready to use on Grant. Unfortunately I just disovered even more problems with these kits than those described in Terry's reviews

Relatively minor problem is the lack of driver's periscope in Grant kit, not mentioned by Terry, but mentioned some time ago by Steve Zaloga here on ML. It shouldn't be too hard to scratch it though. And while doing it, I may just as well make two such periscopes, as identical one should be on the commander's hatch on the turret and the one in the kit is way too tall.

Another thing is the gun barrel in Grant - while Terry is right that long barrel from Lee kit is still included and is correct length, I checked all references I have (not much, I admit...) and couldn't find a single photo of Grant with long barrel. It looks like most Grants had short barrel and only small number had the counterweight on it and if any had long barrels they must have been very rare. Again it is relatively easy to correct this error, by cutting a few mm's off the tip of short barrel from Lee and replace it with the barrel tip and counterweight from Grant, making sure that overall length of "Frankenstein" barrel is correct.

But the biggest problem I found is the position of 37mm gun and co-ax machine gun in the turret in both kits! Judging from photos of real tanks and drawings in Hunnicutt book, it seems that the centerline of 37mm gun barrel should go through a center of gun rotor, or actually even a little bit above it. But in both Academy and Lee kits the gun barrel is placed well below the center of the rotor... In practice it means that both MG and 37mm barrels sit noticeably too low and it seems impossible to set the gun in negative elevation! Just take a look at photos on this page on PMMS: http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/academy/acd13212d04.htm

Take a look at the photo captioned "Left side vision port" in the middle of the page and compare it to the image of real tank that is two photos below on the left. Note how much lower the gun tube is on model photo and the lack of space below the gun, while there is a big hole in real tank there. Exactly the same problem exists in Lee kit.
I have some plans to correct this problem but it won't be as easy as correcting other issues...
I hope I won't find any more such serious flaws

Oh, and it is not a complaint about Terry's reviews - he did excellent job with them and caught most of errors Academy made. I just happened to discovered more of them and sharing the info.

Pawel

Pavel, I am with Terry on this one having recently climbed all over two such vehicles
and photographed them. Unfortunately I do not have my set of the ordnance plans here but
will check them on Tuesday or if I get into work earlier.
I have attached a couple of photos that show the gun to sit very low in the rotor and that there is a cutout under it which allows limited depression. I'm not happy with Academy for the stupid things they do like NOT including the orrected bogies or WE 210 track but in all fairness I think those (and the persicope) are the only major errors with the kit. I'm sure there will be other little things in the kit knowing Academies track record.
One point for those who wish to critiscise the turret contours is that the two vehicles I climbed all over (with thanks to Maj Paul Handel of the RAAC Museum) had subtely different contours from each other.
[IMG][/IMG]
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I look forward to seeing what else you find with it and wish to point out I am not critiscising you
in anyway just saying I think that the gun position is correct (I really appreciate the people who
share this information as they research a project). Such a pity that Academy so stupidly
issued this kit with those bogies and tracks. It would have been a good kit (not a stunner) but quite good.
Drop me an email re photos & Plans
Al

And actually your photos only confirm my findings - you just need to know how to look at them to see the problem.





Pawel

Now that I look at your photos I think that Academy made in fact two mistakes:

1. the rotor is placed too high on gun shield
2. the gun is attached too low on the rotor

This together means that position of the gun on the turret is only slightly too low, but it still looks wrong to me. But it also means that correcting the error is more difficult - if I modify rotor parts to make the gun sit in correct place on it, it will most likely put the gun too high on the turret, because of rotor position error... Aghrrr... I just love Academy...

Pawel

It looks like Ordnance drawing ("borrowed" from PMMS)and one from Hunnicutt don't agree on correct position of the rotor, but Academy part is clearly too high anyway. This probably is the real source of the problem - the wrong position of the rotor forced Academy designer to put the gun too low on rotor to put it at more or less correct position relative to the rest of the turret.

Oh, by the way - I checked my earlier guess about the range of gun elevation in Academy kit turret and I was right - there is no way to set the gun at negative elevation (gun poining down). In fact it is barely possible to set the gun horizontally! It clearly shows that something is wrong there - the real gun had the elevation range from -7 to +60 degrees. Probably the cutout under the gun is too shallow in Academy turret - should be easy to fix this.

Pawel

You are correct, it is too high and sitting too low on the rotor the drawings aginst the kit confirm it. I think the cutout is a bit shallow but having the gun too low doesn't help. Looks like a bit of surgery will be needed - bugger.
Well spotted
Al

Contact Sid Arnold at Armoured Brigade Models and ask him to sell you a new correct turret!

REMOVEsidneyaREMOVE@sympatico.caREMOVE

delete the 3 REMOVE from his email address.

I'd also bet he has an update set coming soon if not already for this kit.

-Bob

all is needed is a new gun shield part and rotor. The turret itself does not require replacement.

Pawel

I',m looking at mine and think the gun mount can be carefully removed and set a bit higher on the Rotor. Wont be easy but its modelling. Apart from the M12 and the M4A2 75 I wish just for once Academy would get one almost right. I don't mind little things (I'm not that pedantic) but the Bogies and now this tends to take the fun out.
I guess I'll just have to get the fun doing it the old way. It is still streaks ahead of Tamiyas monster and I can buy 2 of these and two M7 donors or two DML Sherman III donors for the cost of an AB one (I could probably get six if I shop online).
Cheers
Al

Hi Pawel if your intrested I have an extra ABM Lee basic set that you might want with correct turret features and other bits.This set is basicly just the turret, fittings and storage boxes. Contact me offline if your intrested. not realy looking to profit but mabe some sort of trade? I hope its ok to post this here. Sounds like you can eliminate some headaches with it. Cheers Mark

Hi Pawel,

Thanks for the updated info but maybe you missed these few words from my review? Quote "and the Driver's periscope fitted to the Grants roof is also missing."

Cheers
Terry A

I probably expected this omission would get a little more "coverage" and that's why I missed this line in your review... I apologize for that!

Pawel

The trunnion location can be seen on the attached at 12.375 inches above the base surface of the turret and 14.500 inches forward of the turret centerline. The elevation plane is 2 inches to the right of the turret centerline.



Also, the trunnion is below the gun axis.



KL