M977 HEMTT

This will be made in Woodland Camouflage as one of the two that I drove or Tc'ed when I was attached to the support company in the Army. It will be HQ 412 from HHC 1/37 AR, 1 AD, Friedberg, Germany. The picture I uploaded is not one that I was actually on, but a similar one.

There is a mistake with the parts, part a67, one of the shocks, is facing the wrong way, the easiest thing to do is cut it and turn it around so it is facing the right way. There are also a lot of pin marks in bad places, like in the bottom of the bed which have to be fixed and two big ones right in the middle of the side mirrors. . Ok, so on a HEMTT, at least the ones I was on, the Camouflage continues to the undercarriage on the sides, the Italeri instructions do not show this. I am not so happy with the detail on the inside of the cab, there are a lot of things missing like the light switch and stuff in the middle of the cab by the driver's seat. Maybe I should have got the Eduard interior set. Also on the exterior of the cab, on the top in the front, these little bumps that are there should be clearance lights just like what are on the outside on the sides, like the amber light in the front corner in the picture here. Italeri also shows no camouflage in the bed, which is not always right. Some have camouflage also in the bed, the ones I was on were just green, I think (was almost 20 years ago, and what color the bed was was the least of my worries) but some pictures I found show camo in the bed too;. It only makes sense that there is camo in the bed as well, or it would stick out like a sore thumb from the air. The crane, well it looks descent, but I am not happy with the way it was made. It shows the Booms there, but only the end boom is movable, so the crane cant extend as far forward as it should. It wouldn't have killed them to put in one more piece for the middle boom. The outriggers are totally wrong!!! First, the base plates do not stay on the outriggers, when the outriggers are not being used, the base plates are taken off and put in a little area right to the left of the right outrigger. I have uploaded a picture of how they look. That they molded the base plates on the outriggers, you cant even cut them off cause then they would have the end swivel pieces missing where the base plates attach. I was also not happy with how the bed goes together, the engineering on this is way dumb. I have quite a few pictures of real HEMTT's from the army, would like to upload them somewhere for other people to use as reference.