Full Review by Mike Mende
Regular subscribers to this magazine will remember that Geoff posted an initial Here Now kit review a couple of years back and, while giving a good idea of the flavour, there are a few points which require comment.
To begin with, the only part of this 2014 release kit originating from Revell is the box! The LCM3 Landing Craft is an Italeri kit, No. 6436, first issued in 2004 and the 4×4 Off-Road Vehicle (okay, let’s call a Jeep a Jeep) is Italeri kit, No. 314 first issued in (believe it or not) 1979. Having said that, the quality of the kit is good, dimensions being far more accurate than the Trumpeter offering, there being only a few exceptions which I shall detail during the build.
My first impressions were that the type of styrene used for the LCM and Jeep differed greatly. The LCM sprues are a light grey styrene of a fine, hard but ‘slightly cheesy’ texture which is slightly malleable and a joy to work and there is little flash, however, the Jeep sprues are definitely a product of their time, being that brittle olive green styrene with plenty of flash, so familiar to those of us of the older fraternity.
Both the LCM and Jeep sprues contain figures. There are 3 LCM crew figures that are a bit heavily done in US Navy foul-weather clothing but, if you want to use them, a bit of work will bring them up to scratch. The only problem is that the two figures manning the machine guns are absolutely identical so decisions will have to be made whether to modify, discard or even replace one, always assuming that you wish to adopt the US version of the model rather than that of the Royal Navy. As far as the Jeep figures are concerned, again you get three, including the driver. One of the figures is equipped with an M18 Recoilless Rifle. Since, so far as I am aware, this is not supposed to have been deployed in Europe until March 1945, the possibilities for its use with an LCM3 diorama are virtually non-existent. Moreover, all three figures are of such poor quality that I would suggest that you throw them away, just keeping a few items for the spares box. The Jeep and trailer are quite acceptable (with a bit of work) for their age but may benefit from some aftermarket parts; e.g. wheels. However, I have to state that I have never been a “rivet counter”. I am content, within reason, to build and finish my models straight out of the box unless I am aware of a glaring fault and have the knowledge and expertise to do something about it.