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:

Behind the Curve - Battlefront Team Yankee

I know I'm way behind the curve on this one but I found a really good deal on the "Bannon's Boys" box set and decided to jump in. I haven't played modern armor in years and I have long since sold off my very extensive GHQ micro armor collection (again, wish I hadn't done that). I'm not sure I'll be playing the Team Yankee rules but I'll give them a try at some point other wise I'll go back to my old GDW Combined Arms rules which I think have really withstood the test of time.

The box is a bit beat up but I can't complain for something about half price.

I do love plastic kits. This should be fun.

I'm not sure why the tank commanders are cast in resin or why there is only one sheet of decals for the AH-1s when you obviously need 2. I'm not impressed with the sculpting on the tank commanders either.

The resin cast objective marker. Pretty nice