M88A1 ARV

by Mick Toal

AFV Club's 1/35 scale M88A1 ARV is available online from Squadron.com

Mick Toal describes AFV Club's M88A1 ARV as "the best 1/35th injection moulded armour kit ever made".

A stickler for enhancements, about all Mick could add to the kit was a brass rod brace at the end of the jib and non-skid surfaces.

Mick's only gripe was the headlight guards, which were a nightmare to eventually reconstruct after they came off the sprue "busted into smithereens" but this feature has been corrected in the subsequent M88 kit, which renders the items in etched metal.

The rubber band tracks were spot-on, but Mick chose to use AFV Club's individual links because they were "so damn good".

The kit went together superbly and Mick cobbled the figures together from Verlinden heads, Milliput on wire armature arms and Tamiya U.S, flak jacket torsos.

A former foreign correspondent, Mick based his M88A1 on a US Marine vehicle he photographed at Mogadishu dock during OPeration Restore Hope in Somalia, January 1993.

The kit was finished in the standrad US three colour camouflage. No Markings were apparent on the original vehicle, which was supporting a troop of M1A1 (HA) Abrams tanks, which were possible the first of their type in US Marine service to see action.