ESCI – 8362 – 8029 – M12 Self Propelled Gun (155mm Gun Motor Carriage M-12)

Description:

M12 Self Propelled Gun (155mm Gun Motor Carriage M-12)

Unassembled plastic model kit in 1/72 scale of a U.S. WWII M12 Gun Motor Carriage self-propelled gun, mounting a 155mm gun over a deeply modified M3 Grant tank chassis. Only around 100 units were produced in 1942 and 1943, but the design paved the way for the later M40 design and for years of self propelled large guns.

ESCI tooled this kit in 1975, for decades it remained as the only M-12 in 1/72 scale till UM tooled a new one UM – 211 – M12 King Kong which nowadays is considered as the best option despite the problems on the front lower hull plates.

In general terms, the ESCI kit is a good kit, excellent at its time, with the only odds of the sprocket wheel and in the early ESCI releases, the poor single piece tracks. Suspension parts are not the best either but for an average modeller they are good enough so i only would think of replace tracks and the sprocket wheel, especially if you get/own an early ESCI kit with the single piece tracks. Later, ESCI-Ertl replaced tracks by link-and-length hard plastic ones, and those were kept in the Italeri re-release Italeri – 7076 – M12 Gun Motor Carriage (See the Italeri kit with sprue pictures).

Though simplified, the kit provides enough details for most of us in the gun and crew compartment and in general, and though the finest modellers would prefer the UM kit, the ESCI or Italeri kit are easier to build and enough detailed for most of us. The kit provides three hard plastic figures which i consider of little help as quality is not the best at all.