PENINSULAR PERSHING

The M26 Pershing was intended as a replacement for the M4 Sherman during WWII but due to a prolonged development only a small number saw service in Western Europe during that conflict. Some were sent to Okinawa in the Pacific Theatre of Operations but again due to delays they never saw combat against the Japanese. Five years later the M26 was deployed to Korea although it was found to be inadequate in the mountainous Korean territory and was withdrawn from the conflict after only twelve months, being replaced by M4 Shermans and M46 Pattons. The M26 was also used by Belgium and France with the final models being withdrawn from Italian service around the mid-1960s. Dragon’s M26 has been around since 1994 and has been re-released periodically under DML, Cyber Hobby and even the Platz label in their “Girls Und Panzer” series of Japanese anime characters.

The kit itself is moulded in grey polystyrene and includes nine sprues, a decal sheet and that’s it, no etch or any other goodies. Moulding quality is pretty good considering the age of the tooling with little to no flash present.

Unfortunately every one of the individual track links have two mould-pin marks on the outer surface and these will be very tedious to fill and clean up. It would have been made easier if they were raised instead of indented but life is not fair like that. The tracks also have separate central guide horns that need to be glued into place but looking at the instructions it might be easier to glue the links together first then add the guide horns. The exterior surfaces feature a nicely rendered textured finish especially on the turret and gun mantlet although no casting numbers are moulded on, there is no interior detail whatsoever and the vision blocks in the commanders cupola are solid rather than clear.

The main gun is made up of two halves and will need care cleaning up after assembly to avoid any ‘flat spots’ and I was pleasantly surprised to see that the under sides of the fenders were free of any pin marks or locating holes, unfortunately there are pin marks on the inside of the driver’s and radio operator’s hatches and these will need cleaning up if you wish to have the hatches open. You need to add the tow cable that was attached to the rear of the hull as this is not included in the kit, the exhaust could do with hollowing out or some clever painting and the 0.50 cal machine gun on the turret could do with replacing too.