"American Anti-Tank Squad Review" Topic

"Tanks were a problem for all armies in the Second World War, particularly the heavier models, which could easily withstand hits by the standard 37mm guns widely employed. For the American Army the Bazooka partly solved the problem, but work was also done on developing a larger calibre anti-tank rifle, and the result was the M20 75mm recoilless rifle. Introduced from March 1945, the war ended before this weapon could be used in large numbers. Although too weak to pose a threat to the heavy tanks, it was fairly mobile and performed well against lightly armoured vehicles as well as bunkers, and was a general close infantry support weapon. Although very late to World War Two, it was widely used during the Korean War, again against lighter targets than the T34s it faced there.

The only anti-tank weapon in this set is the M20, and unusually it is moulded as a single piece, including the machine gun tripod on which it is mounted. Despite that it is actually a quite good model, nicely detailed and of the correct size. There has been some simplification, as usual, and the main missing elements here are any form of sight, and the breech block lock (which actually also included the trigger). We don't see any technical reason why a reasonable effort could not have been made to include these, even in a basic form, but if you want this degree of authenticity then you will have to make them yourself. More fundamentally, however, it has been mounted on the tripod the wrong way round – the tripod should have the longer leg to the front, to allow the necessary elevation – and as we have said you cannot change this on a one-piece model…"

Full Review here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Eh.

I don't have any reason to criticize the modelling, and it isn't my scale so I'm not a likely buyer in any case, but of all the weapons they could have modeled for a US Army Anti-Tank kit, the M20 RCL is about the least interesting I can think of.

Entering service all of one month prior to the end of the war in ETO (and not including any actual combat engagements in ETO, at least not that I've read of), it was replaced in service as soon as practical after it was shown to be fairly useless against T-34s in Korea.

So why would I want one of these … much less 8 of them?

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

Glup!….

Amicalement
Armand

I agree with Mark. I suppose the crew could be used in other roles but why 8 M20´s?