Background

From Meng's Website - High altitude, large temperature difference, dry weather, broken stones and snow, Afghanistan has the harshest natural environment for ground weapons and soldiers. In response, the shrewd British has chosen a special light-weight vehicle for their famous and professional army. The vehicle was derived from the heavy pickup trucks of the U.S. company Navistar. It can be transported by the C-130. It has better cross-country capability than normal wheeled vehicles and can be easily modified. The British Army named this vehicle after the working dog Husky in the Polar regions.

Meng's Kit

The 320 plastic parts are molded in dark yellow and have nice crisp detail. There is no flash, but mold seams are evident on all of the parts. The kit instructions are in a 6 3/4 x 10 1/4 stapled booklet with 23 pages and 33 assembly steps. The instructions are written in Chinese, English, Japanese, and Russian. Assembly diagrams are exploded CAD drawings and include detail paint instructions within each of the steps. A diagram of the sprues is included to help identify parts. Paint colors are called out in AK Interactive and Acrysion color numbers.

A small 2 in. x 2 in. decal sheet is provided with the kit and is packed with many tiny details. Pay close attention to the decal film when cutting out the details to make sure some parts are not cut off. There is also a small photoetch fret, mostly with interior and exterior screens.

Assembly

The first 5 steps build the chassis and suspension, with nice fit of the parts and no assembly issues. All of the parts are called out to be US Desert Tan, and any exceptions are noted in the detailed assembly steps.

Step 4 shows tabs on top of part C8, but these were missing from my kit. When the truck bed is installed in step 28 it was not level due to not having the tabs on part C8.

Steps 6 through 9 assemble the front portion of the body with very nice fit of the parts.

The nicely detailed interior is assembled in steps 10 through 16. Parts are provided for the equipment on the interior of the cab which makes for a nicely detailed interior. In step number 11 the two equipment racks join in the center with an ugly seam that's difficult to patch. Otherwise the interior goes together nicely. Some very small decals are provided for the dashboard instruments in step 15, but they fit nicely with some decal solvent. The harnesses for the seats are left dangling in the air until the interior is mounted into the vehicles body.

The four vehicle doors are assembled in steps 20 through 22. Each door has exterior and interior panels to build up the thickness of the door and provide nice detail on both sides. The rear-view mirror assemblies are very delicate, so I held off installing them until after painting was complete. The doors can be posed either open or closed but are not movable without scratch building a hinge assembly. The door panels fit very tightly into the vehicle cab so check the fit prior to painting.

The roof mounted weapon station can be assembled so it rotates, and the gun mount will move back-and-forth. The hatch is openable.

The truck bed is built up in steps 26 through 28. The exhaust pipe, part F7, has a nicely hollowed out tip. When I installed the truck bed under the chassis it did not sit level. The assembly diagram in step 28 shows tabs on part C8 that were installed in step 4, however these tabs were not present so the truck bed didn't fasten properly to the chassis.

Step 29 builds up and shows attachment of the vehicle wheels. The wheels use poly caps that allow the wheels to be pushed on and rotate. The tires have good sidewall detail and very little mold seam so they will look nice with a little sanding of the tread for wear.

The remaining steps 30 through 33 install the storage racks and equipment on the truck bed without any difficulty. The end result is a nicely detailed truck exterior with many pieces of equipment and antennas.

I spent about 25 hours on assembly and painting of the kit.

Summary

This is another excellent kit from Meng that builds up easily with nice detail and excellent fit of the parts. The resulting kit is a nice scale model with an impressively detailed interior, lots of exterior detail, and many exterior equipment pieces. The wheels will rotate, and the front wheels turn to allow posing. Intermediate and advanced modelers should have no trouble assembling the kit, and modelers with less experience can still enjoy the kit if they are careful and patient with the assembly.

Thanks to Meng for producing another excellent kit and providing the review sample to IPMS.