Academy 1/35 M3A1 Stuart Light Tank |  | History The M3A1 was the first Stuart Variant to be updated based on the British desert battlefield experience. The main difference was in the turret. The gyrostabilizer was improved with an Oil Gear traversing motor instead of the manual traversing gear of the earlier versions.Crew members in the turret had a hard time moving around and this lead to a turret basket arrangement. Two periscopes were added to the turret roof thus eliminating the need for a cupola. A second hatch was also added to the right side of the roof. A number of other modifications were added during the course of production. A pair of jettisonable fuel tanks were fitted to the rear deck to increase the combat range. These were made to be dropped from the vehicle by a cable mechanism that was controlled from the inside of the tank. In the summer of 1942 M3A1's were produced with a partially welded hull to minimize "rivet splash". The first 211 M3A1's were powered by the Guiberson diesel engine and the other 4,410 were powered by the Continental radial engines. The Kit  The kit consists of 732 parts (WOW!) beautifully molded in dark green plastic contained on nine trees. 424 of those parts are for the individual track links. You have the choice of these or very nicely molded rubber tracks. All parts are crisply molded with virtually no flash. The instruction sheet is well laid out and construction is divided into eight easy to follow steps: -
Step 1 is the assembly of the lower hull and all of the suspension components. -
Steps 2, 3 and 4 are the construction of the interior components. -
Steps 5 and 6 are the construction of the upper hull details and the installation of the track links. -
Step 7 is the construction of the turret and main gun. One really nice feature is that all of the turret pistol ports can be built opened or closed. The hatches are wonderfully detailed both inside and out. -
Step 8 is the assembly of the final details and the extra fuel tanks if the tank is being built as a US vehicle.  Decals are provided for five different tanks including three US and two Soviet tanks. The US choices are one from Tunisia, December, 1942 and two from the US Marines on Bouganville, November, 1943. Both of the Marine tanks feature wonderful "nose art" style pin-ups. This will definitely add some color to your armor collection! Both Soviet vehicles are from unidentified units. One interesting thing to note is that the box artwork shows a vehicle with a partially welded hull, but the kit is the earlier version with the riveted hull. This is due to Academy using the same molds for this kit as the M3 Honey that was released earlier this year. The rivets can however, be easily removed to model a later version. There are also numerous extra parts such as dished road wheels and such that hopefully mean other versions are coming (please Academy, an M5 and an M8!). Conclusion All in all this looks to be an outstanding kit with outstanding detail and a wonderful interior, and having built the M3 "Honey" already, I can hardly wait to get started on this one! For those of you who picked apart the Honey kit, do yourself a favor with this one, just build and enjoy it! Don't stress yourself out with the minute details; remember that this is a FUN hobby! Highly recommended! My thanks to MRC for the review sample.
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