Love new Tamiya stuff. Excellent instructions and fit, like always. Keep them coming.

I picked a couple of these up to use for a 28mm post-apocalyptic sci-fi concept, and when I opened the box and saw just how many tiny parts were involved, especially for the tank tracks, I felt a little intimidated: I'd built similar kits back in the '80s when I could see a lot better and my hands shook less, but as I worked on this one, I was surprised how easily everything went together, especially those tracks, which seemed to just fall right into place one link at a time without gluing my fingers together and falling apart in my hands once. The kit was pretty friendly to conversion work using styrene sheets and rods and hard plastic 28mm figures and bitz. The soldier figure was a bit tall for 28mm (and, I suspect, for 148 scale in general), but the vehicle itself looks great with 28mm figures (from Wargames Atlantic, mileage may vary for some of the shorter figures produced by other manufacturers!) Detail is crisp, no flash to be found, parts fit together smoothly with only the minimal trimming needed to remove them from the sprues, the moving parts for the turret worked as designed (even though I didn't use it for my conversion project, and will try to think of another use for the turret later.) I'd rate it at a moderately difficult model to build according to the instructions, just pay close attention to those steps involving the tracks and other fiddly parts, as it can be easy to miss the order and direction that these parts are intended to fit in - that said, the instructions were very clear and user-friendly, the parts are simply a bit small and tricky. Japanese model-makers tend to make superb plastic model kits, Tamiya is no exception, and this kit didn't disappoint - I really can't think of anything to complain about in this kit. I love the 1/48 scale and wish more vehicle models were available in this scale, the price was quite fair for what we get as well. I'd gladly work with models from this manufacturer again.

This was a great little kit to build. Excellent Tamiya quality throughout. My big fingers and thumbs did have little trouble with some of those tiny pieces! I laid the tow cable out along the tank to get a better idea as to the length it needed to be, directions are way off on the length. Everything fit like a glove.