The Other Hellcat

Historical Background

In the aftermath of the Battle Of France, the US Army perceived that in the face of the German Blitzkrieg tactics, its units are expected to be faced by large numbers of German tanks attacking on a relatively narrow front. The enemy was expected to break through the thin anti-tank gun screen. Therefore it was decided that the main anti-tank units, the Tank Destroyer battalions, should be concentrated and made mobile. This was later turned into the so-called tank destroyer doctrine and was championed by Lt. General Lesley McNair, Commanding General, Army Ground Forces. Under this doctrine, the tank destroyer battalions were to be held as reserve at the corps or army level and to be moved quickly to the site of enemy armoured breakthrough, using aggressive tactics to destroy enemy tanks. This led to a requirement for a fast, heavily-armed vehicle. Although equipped with a turret, the tank destroyer was more heavily gunned, but, in order to be more maneuverable, more lightly armoured than a regular tank, This doctrine was considered to cause the delay in introducing the M26 Pershing heavy tank and limited the Sherman's armament to just 3"/76 mm.

The M10 was the first standardised product of this theory but to all intents and purposes it was just an interim vehicle. Back in December 1941, the Ordnance Corps issued a requirement for a fast tank destroyer using the torsion bar suspension, Wright/Continental R-975 engine and 37 mm gun. The requirement for the armament however kept changing, which finally settled on 3"/76 mm as T70 Gun Motor Carriage, standardised in February 1943 as the M18 Hellcat Gun Motor Carriage. The Hellcat was designed by Harley Earl of Buick Motor Company Division of General Motors.  Buick engineers developed an innovative torsion bar suspension that provide a steady ride, even at the road speed of 60 mph (which made the M18 the fastest AFV of World War 2). The Hellcat was subjected to the same tests that were applied to passenger cars at General Motors' Milford Proving Ground. Speed testing was done on paved, banked oval circuit while ride quality was tested on specially developed bumpy stretches. It was also subjected to further tests such as ability to ford six feet of water, climb low walls and ram through structures.

The M18, like other US tank destroyers of the time has an open-top turret which left the crew exposed to the elements, grenades and shrapnel from mortar and artillery. It wasn't really a concern as the maxim 'speed is armor' was applied to the tank destroyer force. In reality however, the high-speed of the Hellcat was rarely applied but when it did, it was used to good effect, allowing flanking moves to be made against the more heavily armoured Panthers and Tigers. The M18 was also designed with simplicity in maintenance in mind, with the engine mounted on rollers which permitted quick removal and maintenance. The transmission could also be easily removed and rolled out onto a front deck plate to facilitate quick inspection and repairs. The M18 was protected by rolled and cast homogenous armour plates,with thickness ranging from 6 mm (floor) to 25 mm (turret front). The main armament was a M1A1 or M1A1C 76 mm gun with 45 rounds (9 ready rounds in the turret). The secondary armament was an M2 12.7 mm machine gun in a ring mount and was provided with 800 rounds.

The M18 first saw combat at Anzio, Italy when T70 prototype was sent there for combat evaluation. Thereafter, the M18 was used on the slog up the Italian Peninsula and later, through the North-West of Europe. The Hellcats were never employed in their intended role per se as the Germans almost never employed their panzers in mass attacks. The TD battalions ended up being distributed among infantry divisions where they provided direct fire support against enemy fortifications or indirect fire against enemy movements. The Hellcat did fought as a pure tank destroyer on many occasions but most notably on 19 September 1944 near Arracourt, France. The 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion was attached to the 4th Armored Division when a platoon from 'C' Company detected a German ambush. The platoon managed to destroy 15 panzers, mostly the feared Panthers for the loss of three M18s. On 19-20 December 1944, during the Battle of The Bulge, the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion, together with 1st Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, checked the advance of the 2nd Panzer Division, destroying at least 30 panzers. This is one of the cases where the Hellcat's high speed allowed it to be deployed in a blocking position within a short time. The Hellcat was also used by the Chinese Nationalist Army against the Japanese, but mostly in support of the infantry as Japanese armour in China was comparatively rare.

Post-war, the M18 were sold to other countries. The Republic of China operated some and when the vehicles had worn out, transferred the turret to M42 Duster chassis, turning them into Type 64 light tank. Another user was the former Yugoslavia, using them during the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. The final user was Venezuela, which still have 75 in reserve. The M18 was produced until October 1944 with 2,507 built. The numbers include the turretless M39 Armored Utility Vehicle.

The Kit

Academy came up with their kit of the Hellcat in 1997. The kit was moulded in dark green plastic and contained 378 parts; the tracks are of single-length vinyl or alternatively, plastic link-and-length type. A length of twine, a small decal sheet and the assembly instructions rounded up the package. Options are provided for guns with or without muzzle brake and also with or without mantlet cover. Despite the year of release, the kit featured slots and holes in the lower hull for motorisation (and that was also perhaps the reason 'static model' was printed on the box top). Being an open-topped vehicle, there were interior details which was adequate in the 1990s. The tracks, both vinyl and plastic. are too thin and are best replaced with aftermarket goodies. Furthermore, I believe there were erroneous parts, especially a round shaped plastic, which I guess is the turret basket floor and the hull floor molded as one. Decals provide markings for two vehicles: 'I Don't Want A', France, September 1944 and 'Dorothy', Germany, December 1944. There are no details about the units those vehicles were assigned to.

Construction

The Academy Hellcat went slightly out of the norm by having you build up the interior first. Having said that, the interior is very basic. There was a partial interior for the drivers compartment with just the driver and assistant driver's seats and a rather nice of representation of the transmission. Bumps (instead of tubes or at least a bit more detailed representations) were moulded on the sponson to represent ammunition stored on that location. The motorisation hole, although out of view, has a blanking plate and it's up to the modeller whether to add the plate or not (I did). The back plate was the cemented to the hull and was then followed by the suspension arms. Several parts, mostly for the two boxes at the rear end of the crew compartment, constitute the interior of the hull. While the suspensions arms were all fitted, the wheels were left off at this time.

The upper hull assembly was rather simple. A few details were cemented underneath the forward area and drivers' hatches were cemented in the closed position (they can be posed in the open position too). The fit between the upper hull and the back plate was not good however - the upper hull should sit flush with the top of the back plate but the slot on the back plate caused the upper hull to sit lower, making the top of the back plate standing proud. I managed to pry off the back plate and after some experimenting, decided to remove the slot and reposition the back plate so that the top stays flush with the upper hull. This however means that the sides near the top are no longer aligned while there were large gaps at the bottom and lower sides, requiring filling for the top and supergluing the bottom and also filling the gaps on the lower sides. While the headlights were fitted, the brush guards were left off at this time as a precautionary measure against rough handling (it's quite ironic, I know). The tools were also left off to ease painting. And speaking of the tools, the kit showed another of its eccentricities : having the tools' locations in faint, raised lines.The skirtings were also left off to facilitate the fitting of the tracks (and further fit problems because of the hull modifications stated above, more on this later..).

If one follows the instructions (like I did), turret assembly started with the assembly of the gun breech. Being the most visible part of the interior, Academy has them pretty detailed (I have seen worse for open-topped vehicle, like the old Italeri M36B1). The breech was the set aside and the turret base was next. While things like turret rotating mechanisms, commander's seat and other stuff were cemented to the base, the gunner's and loader's seats were assembled but also set aside at this time. The turret shell was then cemented together, trapping the trunnion between them. Two types of radios were provided for the turret bustle but no indication which belongs to which markings. The turret ammo rack was then assembled - they include ammunition for a full rack but I somehow think that they are rather anorexic for 76 mm rounds. To ease painting, the breech assembly was pre-painted before being put into place. Academy provided two types of mantlet - one covered and one without cover. I chose the covered mantlet with the appropriate parts for the barrel. Academy also provided plain (M1 gun) and braked muzzle (M1A1C) but again, there was no specific instructions about them. The M2 machine gun was left off at this time.

Painting and Decalling

Generally for WW2 US tanks, you can paint them any colour as long as it was Olive Drab. I used Tamiya XF-62 Olive Drab for this build. The tyres were painted Gunze H77 Tyre Black. The pioneer tools were originally painted the usual colours - steel for the metal parts and Buff/Red Brown for the handles. Although the pioneer tools for US vehicles were actually painted olive drab, but visual interest's sake, I painted the 'wood' parts XF-64 Red Brown and the 'metal' parts in steel. For markings, as I have already used the muzzle-braked gun, I chose the second option, 'Dorothy' as it would be more plausible (according to the rough timeline stated in the instructions). The decals were typically Academy in-house but apply beautifully, perhaps due to the gloss finish. The tracks, including the spare track was painted XF-64 Red Brown and washed with AK Interactive Track Wash. Oh by the way, I chose the belt-style tracks.

Finishing

The painted tracks was looped and being the of old Tamiya style, needed a heated flat screw driver to secure it. The rather ugly connecting area were placed so that it would be hidden by the fenders (despite virtually every photo showing the fenders being removed in the field). And talk about the skirts, the rear pair was affected by the change in the back plate's position. The port side wasn't bad as it only require a little putty to fix the resulting gap. The starboard side was worse as the fender is now further forward than it should be. The brush guards were next and as the cross-beams were divided into two, resulting in misalignment during test-fitting (similar to the light guards in Hobby Boss's ZTZ 96 kit). So I cut the cross beams off, replaced them with styrene rods and touched up the paint. Although the kit provided a sprue from Academy's Allied and German Tank Supplies Set kit, they were not used and I decided to use packs from the Tamiya Allied Vehicles Accessory kits and my spares stash instead. Vallejo Thick Mud was slathered to the lower hull, wheels and tracks.

Conclusion

Apparently the Academy M18 is a hit-and-miss affair and the worse of the two 1/35 M18s in the market. Some reviewers mentioned the gross inaccuracy of the base kit, being dimensioned to fit motorisation (others beg to differ, saying the Academy kit's dimension was not that bad compared to AFV Club's offering) - it still looks like a Hellcat to me . The fit is 50/50 with the worst regarding the rear of the hull and the fit between the gun and the mantlet. Same goes with details - some good, some simplified (to the point of ridiculous like the sponson-stored ammo) and some missing altogether (like the gunner's sight). While the actual M18 tracks looks thinner than its contemporaries, it should not be as (scale) thin as it was in the kit. With just the two companies offering the type in 1/35 they are just the only game in town when it comes to M18s - it's all up to the modeller to choose which one (the Academy was cheaper and that influenced my decision!)