This set includes 9 figures in various poses and a wide range of uniform dress. None of the usual pointing weapons or throwing hand grenades with this set as the figures are all in non-warlike poses. There are four sprues, three in OD and one in grey. The grey sprue has all the figures on it. One of the OD sprues consists of barrels, bedrolls, jerry cans and the like.

What will draw the interest of most and is something not touted highly on the box is the 'light vehicle'. Of course, this is a Jeep. Tamiya has decided not to bend to the lawyers and pay any sort of licensing fee as did Hasegawa when they released their Jeep. By not making any sort of mention of exactly what it was, they didn't have to pay the ransom that is often sought from lawyers when models of US taxpayer paid-for products are modeled overseas.

it would be natural to compare the two Jeeps and since I'm fortunate enough to have examples of both, let us see what the differences are.

One thing that is the same with them is that they both have a ton of ejector pin marks on one side of parts. That means that the underside of the body, back of the windscreen, underside of the hood and so on have a lot of work to be done if any of those areas are to be visible.

The biggest difference is that the Hasegawa kit has a top and the body is molded with the sides in place. On the Tamiya kit the sides are separate. The Tamiya kit also has a four-piece machine gun on a stick whereas the Hasegawa one is a two piece mold. Hasegawa's windscreen wipers are molded on the windscreen while Tamiya's are on the frame. The Tamiya kit has separate wheel backs; Hasegawa's are one piece.

The Hasegawa kit has pretty much a full engine; on the Tamiya kit it is just the underside. The Tamiya kit has seats that appear to be more 'airy' than theHasegawa ones.  Tamiya's suspension is three pieces and Hasegawa's is one. Aside from that, they are both about the same in terms of what you will finally get. The general impression I have is that the Hasegawa kit isn't as 'fiddly' as the Tamiya version and does offer the benefit of having a full engine as well as a passenger and the top.

The Tamiya kit seems slightly more detailed and though not packaged as such, comes with 9 figures including a driver for the Jeep. In the end there seems to be little to actually choose between them.

I chose to highlight the underside of the body for this preview. As you can see, there are differences, though they are quite minor (aside from the Tamiya kit not having vehicle sides).

So there you have it. A fine figure set for US soldiers and the benefit of also having a nice Jeep included in the price. I can see this set selling very quickly as it really is a bargain.

September 2007

You can get this fine kit at www.wingsntreads.com. My thanks for the review sample.

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and quickly by a site that has  400,000 visitors a month, please contactme or see other details in the Note toContributors.

Back to the Main Page

Back to the Previews Index Page