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Carl Christensen
46 articles

M8 ‘HELLCAT’

July 10, 2021 · in Armor · · 9 · 2.2K

This is number 2 of 3 builds I've had going on at the same time, and all just getting finishing touches added to them before I have been able to declare them 'finished'. So this one is now... 'finished' (The first of the 3 was my previous post, the Takom Judgpanther on the railcar).

This is the M8 Hellcat (I'm told its the Academy kit, but now reboxed as Airfix). It was a US Tank Destroyer that arrived in late 1944 and was apparently very successful due to its small size and speed. The kit was an impulse buy as I had only gone to our local model store for some paints so had to sneek the kit past the 'boss' at home before she saw it LOL!

It's an impulse buy that I don't regret, it was a nice easy build with more interior detail than I was expecting which was a happy bonus. The kit also comes with quite a big selection of bags and ammo boxes etc to add at the end. Although I used after market ones, the ones supplied were excellent and will end up on some of my other builds in the future.

It's not a high spec kit with loads of PE pieces, in fact it has none (which I was happy about, as with my fat fingers and almost 50 year old eyesight I'm not a fan of lots of PE parts hahaha!).

The figures are the Miniart US NW Europe set, with just a few wee 'tweeks and changes'.

Reader reactions:
7  Awesome

7 additional images. Click to enlarge.


9 responses

  1. Excellent work, especially the figures. I share your view of P.E. parts.

  2. This looks great, Carl. Being an aircraft guy myself, I know diddly about armour but I know what I like…and I like this! Nice work.

  3. Those guys look cold - must be the early "spring" of 1945, the end of the coldest winter in a century (interestingly, each of the European winters of World War II was "the coldest winter in a century" with each breaking the previous record.

    Very nice work on figures, creepie-crawlie and base, Just what a good diorama needs.

    "Liked"

  4. Marvelous build, stowage superbly done!

  5. Excellent job, Carl!
    Love the figures, as well as the rest of the diorama.

  6. Nice vignette, Carl. It has a realistic feel.

  7. Well done, your kit looks great and your figures are very nice. I wish I could get mine half as nice. Your base looks great, the mud of melting snow and spring rains really looks good.

  8. Beautiful work, I love the whole feel of this. I am also not a big fan of PE parts. On one build of mine, I got rid of half of them and used stretched sprue. The parts were so small I don't think anyone notice!

  9. Well done Carl, great looking base too.

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