Team Yankee M1 Abrams WIP - Building

I have slowly been working on the M1 Abrams from the Bannon's Boys box set. The first one I built without the rear turret bustle as that's what the instructions indicated. However, after taking a look at pictures from the REFORGER exercise in 1988 its pretty clear that the extended version with the full rear turret bustle was available and in use.

Note the full rear turret bustle and the overall Forest Green paint job.

So the rest of the box will be built with the rear bustle.

Progress so far:

And the two that are basically finished. They still need some cleanup before I start painting, but I won't do that till all five are finished and ready to go.

M1 with the side racks only

M1 with the rear turret bustle added. It takes a bit of work to make this part go together.

These kits are easy to build and have some pretty nice detail. From a building standpoint there could be more locator pins built into the molds. This would make it a lot easier to line up some of the parts, like the upper hull to the lower hull. I have checked out the Khurasan M1s which are really nice resin and metal pieces but they are a bit more expensive. Battle Front sells a box of 5 plastic M1s for $45, while the Khurasan come in at 13.99 each or 38.99 for a "platoon" of 3.

A few more reference photos by Rene Schatte from the REFORGER exercise: