When I was around 10-11 years old I got into a small scale armor kick. The local shop carried Airfix kits and I built a lot of their kits at the time. The first time I built the M3 Half Track it was a MPC release in their Battle of the Bulge Historama kit.

Fast forward 45, cough, years later and Airfix is re-releasing many of their kits under their Vintage Classics range. The kit appears to be the exact same plastic first released in 1966 including the 1 Ton Trailer. The kit includes 54 parts molded in an OD plastic. There is a bit of flash but what would you expect from a set of molds almost older than me. The kit includes some nice detail, a driver and one of the nicest small scale .50 caliber machine guns. Decals are included for an M3A1 during Operation Overlord. More about them later. The color scheme is shown in full color in the instructions. Other than that change the instructions look like they did when I first built it.

Meng exploded on the scene several years ago and continue to produce very high-quality kits of a variety of subjects. This kit focuses on the Israeli modified M-60 Battle Tank known as the Magach 6B. M-60s began service with the Israeli Army with the 1973 Yom Kippur War and most of the armored force was equipped with M-60 A1 and later models. The Israelis continued to upgrade their fleet to meet the changing threats on the battlefield. These vehicles have the low profile commander’s cupola, an upgraded engine, and armor package as well as an upgraded fire control system. Academy has provided kits of the Magach 6B and 7C, so it will be interesting to see which direction Meng takes with this kit.

Mikhail Zhirohov was born in eastern Ukraine, in 1974. Mikhail graduated from Donetsk State University with a degree in History. He has focused on the former USSR ranging from its medieval history to modern warfare. He has authored over 20 books and published more than 300 articles on various aspects of Ukrainian and military history for popular magazines in Russia, Ukraine, France, UK and other countries since 1998. He lives in Chernihiv, Ukraine.

David Nicolle is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Medieval Studies, Nottingham University. David has focused his research on the military history of Islam. He is the author of over a dozen books on medieval military history. He lives in High Barnet, UK.