Trumpeter 1/35 M198 howitzer
By Rob Folden
The Gun
Fielded by both the US Army and the US Marine Corps, the M198 Towed Howitzer provides troops on the ground with pin-point artillery support, while maintaining a high mobility on the battlefield. The M198 is designed to be transported, via sling, by either the Army's CH-47D Chinook, or the Marines' CH-53E Super Stallion. Manufactured by the Rock Island Arsenal, the M198 weighs in at a “light” 15,758 pounds, and can be made ready to fire in just under 6 minutes. It has a maximum effective range of 13.92 miles with conventional ammunition. Developed in the early 1980's, the M198 was fielded as a replacement for the Vietnam era M114A2.
The Kit
Trumpeter's 1/35 scale M198 Howitzer kit is very well designed. Representing an early M198, the box contains 4 sprues, two formed legs, four rubber tires, and photoetched brass parts.
The plastic is very well molded, and my sample was free of warping and imperfections. The detail was crisp, and the attachment points were well engineered to avoid excess sanding. Also included is a small set of decals and a color painting guide. I was a bit disappointed that the color guide only provided for Marine Corps paint schemes, and even then they were not accurate. Reference photos found online showed the Marines' M198 paint scheme as overall Olive Drab with black camouflage. There is also a length of string included, however it is never shown in the instructions.
The Build
The instructions are fairly straight forward. Construction begins with the barrel, which is unfortunately molded in two pieces. After the glue set, I chucked mine into my trusty drill and turned it on slow speed while sanding it with 400, 800, and 1000 grit paper. The section of the barrel that remains bare metal was also sanded with 2000 grit to prepare for paint. I only needed a small amount of putty at the end where I accidentally took a notch out cutting it from the sprue. There are several pneumatic pistons on the M198, two of which feature a dust cover on the piston rod. This is represented in the kit by parts C9 and C5, which look more like coiled springs. I replaced these parts with a metal spring from a BIC pen, which I inserted into a length of electrical shrink tubing. After heating the tube and cutting to the correct length, the replacement part matched photos of the real thing. Building continues with assembly of the frame arms and base. NOTE- Step 6 instructs you to put the muzzle brake on. I recommend against this, instead waiting until after painting. More on this in a bit. After assembling the tow arms/ support legs, these are added to the base. The final steps bring everything together, however for painting ease, I left the barrel, frame, and base separate. The kit allows for optional display of the stowed-towing position, barrel-up towing position, and firing position. I chose the latter. Painting was done with Tamiya Olive Drab, with NATO Black camo added over that. The section of the barrel to remain bare metal was painted black, clear coated with future, and sprayed with Alclad II Chrome. Everything received a light dry-brushing of pale green before the assemblies were brought together.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I was quite pleased with the M198 kit. It took me only a few days to complete in between working on other projects. The biggest advantage of the kit is that you can assemble nearly everything at once. While one sub-assembly is drying, you can build another. The biggest downfalls to the kit are: Inaccurate paint references, two-piece barrel, and incorrect dust covers on the pistons. That being said, I highly recommend this kit to anyone who wants to add to their artillery collection, or give that 5-ton truck something to pull around. I'd like to thank Steven's International for providing the review kit.
