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This is the M4A3E2 Jumbo produced by Extratech. Unfortunately I jumped the gun and got started prior to taking any photos. The overall quality of the kit is very good. Some of the details are a little soft though. The suspension is one of the major portions which need some attention on this kit. The bogie assemblies are the same as released with all other Extratech M4 series kits with the early trailing arm. On the M4A3E2 Jumbo this trailing arm should be angled upwards eliminating the spacer found on earlier versions. This is actually a fairly easy conversion. Simply manufacture a new trailing arm of the correct configuration and replace the outside of the arm only.

The skids on the top of the bogies are not the best. They are molded solid and really don’t look much like the real thing. I cut these off and replaced them with ones I fabricated from brass.

The side armor also needs some slight attention. there should be a vertical weld in the location shown which is not present. I reproduced the weld by slightly scribing the location with the back of a hobby knife. I stretched a piece of sprue and glued this in place with liquid cement. I then added more liquid cement and textured the weld with the hobby knife

When I first started on this kit I thought that the plastic was too soft. After working on it I think this is probably the best plastic I have ever worked with. The transmission housing, gun manlet and the turret are molded smooth. These items should have a heavy cast texture. Using liquid cement producing this cast texture was easy.

One thing I have noticed is that the turret shape looks a little off to me.

Another item which needs some attention is the front armor. In all pictures I have found the gun lock on Jumbo’s is elevated off the armor plate. The kit has this lying flat against the armor. I remanufactured the mounts out of aluminum tubing and super glued this in place.

The hull looks pretty good to me. No pioneer tools are molded on the hull but are provided in the kit. This is the same hull as provided in the Eduard M4A3 kit. Overall my impression of the kit is that while suffering from some inaccuracies and shortcuts it is overall an excellent starting point for detailing.