The M48 Patton tank served in many conflicts in the mid to late 20th century and has been, with upgrades, used by many countries around the world. Takom’s new 1/35 scale M48A3 Mod B plastic model kit comes with posable hatches, multipiece tracks, clear parts, and markings for four vehicles (two U.S. Army, one South Vietnamese army, and one Marine).
All the suspension parts are added to the lower hull. Don’t glue the torsion bars in place until you’ve checked alignment. Do not glue suspension arms K32 and K33, letting them float free, until Step 4. After the upper hull is attached, you’ll install the engine deck, exhaust grilles, and gun lock. I left off the driver’s periscopes until the final painting.
After painting and installing the road wheels, I checked the alignment and then painted the lower hull.
Each track link comprises six parts that I painted on the sprue. Takom supplies a jig for assembly. As per the illustrations, I left C1 guide horns and C2 track pins on the sprue to help align the track blocks. The area to apply glue to the track blocks is quite small, so be careful. I used Tamiya Extra Thin Cement for this job.
The instructions say 78 links per side; for me, the final count was 80. There isn’t any give in the tracks to stretch them over the sprocket and idler. I resorted to holding the hull and installing the track and sprocket together — not easy. Building and installing the tracks alone took 20 hours.
The fenders will need to be modified to accommodate the air cleaners. The kit doesn’t provide positive locators to hold these assemblies in place, so I inserted them into the side of the hull and adjusted them accordingly. Then I painted them along with the upper hull.
For the turret, the first thing you’ll need to do is drill holes and remove brackets before attaching the grab handles and hatches.
Many parts go into the commander’s machine-gun turret, including clear vision blocks that you’ll need to mask for painting. Like the air cleaners, the turret basket has no positive attachment point. I superglued the photo-etched metal parts first and then attached side piece D31 to bottom D72. I went around, glued the other side, and then the back.
While building the bracket for the searchlight, the rod (Part T20) fell apart in my hand. I replaced it with a .028-inch brass rod. The molded-in alignment ring for the mirror is a bit low, and the bottom piece would not fit correctly. Trimming it off helped.
I finished my M48A3 for the U.S. Army 1st Battalion 77th Armor Regiment “Steel Tigers” B Company. The decals laid down nicely. I spent 60 hours building and painting this kit. Because of the complexity of the tracks, I can only recommend it to experienced modelers.