New M939 Series kit!

Seen on the site of my favorite online shop.

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Very nice. I Love Kit (Merit) is another arm of Trumpeter. They do a really nice job on modern trucks. This will be most welcomed.

Looks cool . Never heard of them, are they new ? Is it a plastic or resin kit ?
Is that truck an M939 or 923 ?

Rich

I am assuming it is a plastic kit as their last kit, M65 Atomic Cannon, was plastic. M939 is the nomenclature for the full series of trucks. The version pictured is an M923A2; 5ton, 6x6, standard length cargo bed truck without winch and with single rear wheels/tires.

M939 Info: M939 series 5-ton 6Ă—6 truck - Wikipedia

If ILK goes the way of Trumpeter, I like to see more M939 family members, e.g. tractor, tanker or even Expandable Shelter. Time to get rid of the crappy Italeri kit. :grin:

Well, of course! My Italeri 923 is on the bench, completed with AM wheels/tires, first coat of paint, and now Meng slides in with what will be (I’m sure) the more comprehensive and accurate model. And probably twice the parts count, plus PE to make a modeller say bad things afer tweezer-launch.

Very good, welcoming news indeed. Thanks for sharing!
I was going to share a new thread on “wish list for new kits in 2021”, and M939 series was on the top of my list. Well, I’m going to put one up anyway. :smiley:
Looks like Merit is paying attention. :stuck_out_tongue:

Hey! That’s my truck! Needs a big hut and a big generator on a trailer and it’s my truck! Yeah, I so need one of those.

I wish that Merit/ILK will provide a canvas top for the cargo area. Then I can finally build the “food truck” from Troop Challenge FTX.

Italeri’s original M923A1 kit (#279) came with a canvas. It may be old and need some TLC, but until the new Merit/ILK one comes out, it is the only option.

Of which I have 5 dammit. Although 2 are the Hillbilly guntrucks. Still, these Merit kits will be great donor kiits for my HF wrecker and RM dump/guntruck.

One on order, more to follow!

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The Italeri M925 shelter truck can be made to look ok too. No detail in the shelter box, like say the AFV Club 2.5 ton service van, but a nice build if you can add a few pe bits.

What bothers me the most about these Italeri offerings were their wheels/tires. Completely wrong, and had to resort to expensive resin ones - costing as much as the kit itself if not more.

Yes, and oftentimes, the resin replacement wheels did not match the axle ends of the chassis, making installation and alignment (really tricky with dual axles!) quite a chore to get done properly.

The new M939 kit has the four-post pylon weapons ring and that makes it accurate. The three-post weapons ring is not used.

The three post weapons ring was used on the M939 series of trucks. The four post is just a newer design. All my 5 tons in OIF 1 had the three post ring mount.

Correct. It depends on what era one is modeling.

I had that problem with an Italeri M978 and RM? wheels. Ended up cutting the axle-ends down and butt-jointing the wheels. Front axle, then rear one side. The rest were just “floated on”.

Sweet! Italeri kit was decent for its time but this is a much needed advance to a very important US military vehicle

I love the M939, its such a great looking truck.
Does anyone know if and how Sidewinders were moved around in these trucks? Must have been a pallet system or similar to support/protect the missiles. Id love to do a dio of an M923 supplying an M730 one day.