Thursday 29 May 2014

PSC 57mm US AT Gun

Technically this comes from a British "Six Pounder" Anti-Tank gun set from PSC (Plastic Soldier Company), however tucked away is the much more interesting variant to make, the US 57mm AT gun option (I didn't have one of these yet). This is something I always wanted but didn't want to buy in metal (I hate putting metal AT guns together, as I always seem to make a mess of the "legs" and they fall apart because they are too heavy when you pick them up or knock them). Plastic kits instead just glue together nicely by comparison. Previously my Yanks would have had to make do with a borrowed Airfix 'six pounder' but now they have a gun of their own (but it might not help them with a Tiger or Panther).

The enclosed instructions are slightly misleading as they show only one British barrel on the sprue, implying there is a drastic craft knife alteration required, gulp pressure not to mess it up (see below):  


Fear not however as there are 'two' barrels on the actual sprue (see below, bottom right):


Dodgy ACME modelling skills are not required and a 57mm AT is easily assembled, even with the US style tyres to boot (see below):


The detail behind the gun shield is simple to assemble but nice (see below):


The nodules to the right hand side are for "ready use ammo" to clip in. No excuse now for me not to start painting an American Chain of Command Platoon up and its supports! The British PSC theme of the kit covers the "crew" complement however, a generous six per gun but no Americans (see below):

Note: However with a little bit of imagination the excess/spare crewmen from the US Heavy Infantry Weapons set (another new PSC release) can be borrowed to make the US "gun crew"


The Loyd carrier element again is a British beast but I have plenty of spare light American transport to use as a tow vehicle.

Note: This also means a nice 'two Lloyd' carrier unit to the British six pounder, one for the ammo and one for the crew to travel in.

4 comments:

Laffe said...

That's an interesting review. They apparently changed the mould after they printed the instructions. Good for us!

Paul Foster said...

Good looking kit.

Arquinsiel said...

Knowing PSC you'll see a box of US gun crew at some point in the future. They're spending lots of time and effort making sure they get the most out of every sprue.

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

I don't have any issues with PSC as you really can see they are trying so hard and are producing such good quality its at very reasonable prices

I just hope they can keep it up as they have some very interesting kits in the pipeline