AFV Club
M41A3 Walker Bulldog
AFV Club 1:35th Scale Kit No. AF 35041
First Look Review
by Terry Ashley
AFV Club
Introduction:
Designed to replace the WWII M24 Chaffee the M41 featured a 76mm main gun and 500hp gasoline engine giving it excellent mobility and firepower for it’s time.
By 1953 the M41 had completely replaced the M24 in US Service although it was never used in anger by the US.
The M41 was well liked by its crews due to its high degree of mobility but one drawback was its lack of range with the engine being a real gas guzzler which meant it only had a range of 100 miles on a full tank.

A large number of M41s were supplied to the South Vietnamese Army and gave a good account of itself against the North Vietnamese T-54/55 tanks.
Other major users included, Brazil, Denmark, Taiwan and Thailand.

Specifications:
Crew:
Length:
Height:
Weight :

Armament:
Main:
Secondary:


Engine:

Speed:
Range:

 Four
26.9 feet
8.9 feet
51,796 pounds


M32A1 76mm Cannon
One .30 Calibre coaxial machine gun
One .50 Calibre M2 machine gun on turret roof

Continental 500 hp AOS-895-5 fuel injected gas engine.

44.7 mph
100 miles

The kit:
The kit comprises 295 parts in olive drab plastic, an aluminium barrel (now almost standard from AFV Club) a short length of twine and two ‘rubber band’ type tracks plus a decal sheet and 12 page instruction booklet which is well laid out and easy to follow.

AFV Club

The quality of the moulding is excellent with fine crisp details on most parts including many very small parts such as grab handles and toolbox handles as separate pieces. Pin ejection marks are kept to a minimum with those present only because there was no choice due to the moulding process, but these are only minor and should be easy to remove.

Lower Hull:
This has good definition on the suspension housings as well as nice weld seams with the circular escape hatch having internal detail. All the items on the rear hull plate are separate pieces for good definition.

The suspension has separate axles, shock absorbers and return roller mountings with the road wheels being from set No.AF 35045 released earlier this year. Detail on the wheels is excellent with the rubber section of the outer road wheel as separate parts to give good definition on the undercut around the rim. The idler wheels are in two parts each to reproduce the oval cut-outs in these wheels. The drive sprockets also have the lightening holes included in the outer rim, although there are some minor pin ejector marks on the outer faces.

Small poly caps are trapped between the road wheels for attaching to the axles as per Tamiya to make it easy to add the wheels after painting.

Tracks:
These are continuous ‘rubber band’ type and have excellent detail for this type of track with well defined pad and inside face details.
AFV Club has also released a set of individual T91E3 Track links for this kit but if you didn’t want to pay extra these tracks would more than do.

track

Upper Hull:
Again this is a superb moulding with the entire rear engine decking as separate parts, considering the fact that Hobby Fan produce a full engine/transmission for the M41 (Kit No.HF015) this is not surprising. The louvered engine compartment doors also have detail on the inside although the doors themselves are moulded in one piece but should be easy to cut apart to show open.

The upper hull features nice weld seam detail and has cut-outs for the driver’s periscope which are separate pieces. The upper sections of the fender storage boxes are included with the upper hull with the sides and bottoms of the boxes as separate parts. The handles on the storage boxes are given as separate parts. The large rear exhausts have the end pipe section separate from the main exhaust body with the pipes being already hollowed out. The barrel travel lock on the rear left fender can be assembled to be movable which is a nice touch.

The tool rack on the front right hand fender has separate tools again for good definition, the front sections of the fenders are also separate parts as are the front lights as you would imagine but the light guards are a little on the thick side but should be easy to thin down, unless you want to wait for Eduard to come to the rescue here?
There are other smaller detail items on the hull which are all separate parts including the grab handle on the driver’s hatch.

Turret:
The turret is split into upper and lower ‘halves’ as is normal these days with the upper section featuring subtle weld seams and wall contours and has separate periscopes, hatches and rear ventilator. The commander’s cupola is also given as a separate part with workable hatch.
The larger tie downs/handles on the turret sides are separate parts as are the main sight housing and rear storage box.

The barrel is in nicely turned aluminium which includes the fume extractor with a two part plastic T muzzle break with this then fitting into the mantlet which also features a separate sight opening cover. One feature seen on the M41 is the large canvas dust cover from the turret front over the mantlet, unfortunately this is not included or mentioned in the instructions and you are left to sort this out for yourself?

An additional small sprue from the AFV Club M88 kit is included with the .50 cal ACAV shield sometimes fitted to ARNV M41s. This has a separate insert to the instructions and is marked “limited” so I can only presume it will only be included in the initial release of the kit.

Another small sprue includes a .50cal MG with flash suppressor included as well as a nice vehicle mounted M60 GPMG, although this isn’t used on this kit it’s nice for the spares box.

Decals:
Markings are provided for 7 vehicles
(Yes, there are white markings on the sheet, vehicle reg numbers, stenciling and US Stars)
  1. US Army 1st Armored Regt. West Germany, 1956
  2. US Army 4th Cavalry, 25th Infantry Division, Thailand 1962
  3. 2 x South Vietnamese Army, 1972 (no other details given)
  4. 3 x R.O.C. Marine Corps (no other details given)
decals

Conclusion:
A very nice kit with exceptional details from the largest to the smallest part and should build into a very attractive M41. I leave it to others to address the accuracy of the kit but it certainly looks like a very nice M41 to me.

Obviously a comparison with the recent re-released Tamiya M41 is inevitable; I can sum this up very quickly. There is no comparison, the Tamiya kit is 30 years old and shows it against this new kit, that’s about all that needs be said on that subject.

Also see a review of the AFV Club Etched Set for the M41

The Sprues:

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References:


Page created July 16, 2002


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