ICM has been pumping out the WWI-era model kits as of late and I have been reveling in it. After learning this kit was available, I jumped at the chance to grab it after recently finishing their FWD Truck kit. For this moderately skilled modeler though, this one proved to be a bit more challenging and frustrating. Details on the parts were crisp and the included engine is nice as well. However there are quite a few sink marks, and not all of them are so easily hidden.

What’s Inside the Box

The kit comes as the standard ICM kit does—with a colorful box top that slides off of an enclosed brown cardboard box. Parts were packaged well and details were crisp with no flash to speak of.

History

The name ‘clouded leopard’ is taken from a beautiful medium-sized wild cat that is found throughout much of Southeastern Asia and pictured below to satisfy your animal interest for this beautiful cat.

This kit is a Taiwan Infantry Fighting Vehicle (TIFV) and appears to closely resemble the Stryker vehicles I have seen at Ft. Lewis. That’s where the apparent similarity ends, as the basic CM-32 vehicle series is new design built in Taiwan, the Republic of China.

Italeri has released a brand new mold kit for “Italian Tanks” that can be used for wargaming or as a nice break from more complex builds.

In the cover of the box you have both a medium tank and a self-propelled artillery. Be aware that the parts in the kit only allows you to build one. Or if you are a bit creative, to have an interchangeable top and being able to display it as one or the other.

Being a brand new mold, the surface finish is excellent and there is no flash anywhere. Being oriented towards wargaming, some of the details might be simplified (like the whole running gear is a single piece) but that adds to the straight and easy assembly component of this kit.

ICM has certainly put its Ford Model T molds to good use, making no less than four different variants of this ubiquitous little vehicle previously, all variants which served with distinction in World War One. Now a fifth variant has been added – a little-known armored version used by the Royal Naval Air Service along the Russian Front. Really more of a weapons carrier than an armored car, only nine of these were ever made. I rather suspect that it was seriously underpowered for the additional weight of the armor, which would have made this a strictly hard-surface weapon of war.

Like the vehicle itself, the kit is a relatively simple build. It also comes with a separate sprue containing the parts for their newly released Vickers Machine Gun, which is a fine little kit in and of itself. There are three moderately-sized sprues with lots of parts you won’t need, a clear sprue for the lamps, a small decal sheet, and that’s about it for complexity.

Camera On 17 Sd. Kfz. 7 Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen 8T Vol. 2, is number 17 in the “Camera On” series published by MMPBooks/Stratus and is a follow up to volume 1. The author, Alan Ranger, has written several books in this series with subjects such as “German Horse Power”, “The Einheits-Diesel WW2 German Trucks to “No 22 Krupp Proze Lorry”.