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I have to admit this is my favorite sports car tank from WWII. OK, it's not a tank, but it's a tank killer. Delivered in 1943, the M18 featured high speed, light armor and the reasonable punch of the 76.2mm gun. Fast enough that the crews used them to HUNT Tigers and Panthers, the M18 was a good, reliable vehicle which fast road and cross country speed. When the test came at the Battle of Bulge, it was ad hoc units formed around M18s that rushed ahead of the German advance and blunted the drive until Allied heavy forces could respond.
The Flames of War kit of my sports car tank is their usual construction: hull and turret cast in dark green resin; tracks and other parts in white metal. There is minimal detail in the turret interior of this kit, and the solid hull precludes interior hull detail. As was pointed out to me after a previous article, the vehicles scale out around 1/100th, not 1/120th as I stated. This is based on actually measuring the vehicles, not just the range of 15mm scale in wargaming.
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Instructions are simple and straight forward. The only kit problem I saw was the 3 inch gun was bent and seemed a little heavy. I replaced the white metal gun barrel with an injected one from one of the Sherman kits.
Assembly is quick using super glue. I painted and finished as I have described earlier. Some external gear is molded onto the turret, and this was hand painted separately before the weathering was applied.
More care is needed with removing the black water based highlight on this kit because of the white metal parts. The enamel does not adhere well to the metal pats and scrubbing too hard quickly strips all the paint from the parts, not just the paint you want to remove. A good metal primer will solve this problem, but care must be used to not obscure the fine detail.
This kit includes a cast metal .50 cal machine gun, which is more in scale than the injected guns in the Sherman tanks. Antenna wire is provided with a bit of stretched sprue. Markings were pulled from the generic Flames at War sheets. The name "Becky" is for the assistant manager at the Game Shoppe where I get these tanks, and made by combining bits from the different names on the generic sheets.
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Half figures are provided for the turret but won't necessarily look right. I picked up a package of complete figures I will use to add 1 or 2 figures to the final miniature. Flames of War also has sets of external stowage. Since M18s were always rather junky on the outside, I will add some additional rolls, and tents, and gas cans when I get a chance.
All in all, this is another nice little miniature. The inside of the turret could be done better. For instance, the M10 includes shells and a better molded gun breach than the M18. But still, I'm happy with the results and it provides a welcome break from building Shermans.