The M1151 Enhanced Armament Carrier is an improved version of the standard Humvee (HMMWV) designed to replace the M1025A2 used by the United States Armed Forces as a response to United States Central Command requirements. The M1151 HMMWV has a heavier chassis and improved engine to handle add-on armor. It is built on an Expanded Capacity Vehicle chassis, which allows for more passengers or additional supplies (up to 2,300 lbs). Its two- or four-seat variant is the M1152 Enhanced Troop/Cargo/Shelter Carrier, designed to replace the M1097A2 Heavy HMMWV and M1113 Expanded Capacity Vehicle.
AM General of South Bend, Ind., was awarded a $59,963,442 contract for 814 M1152s and 31 M1151s and a $19,617,847 contract to buy and install armor kits for the M1151.
To see a nice specs sheet for the MII51 click here.
Academy 1/35 M1151 Enhanced Armament Carrier
- Two crew member figures included
- Accurately reproduced .50 cal gun
- New style wheels and tires
- Photo-etched parts
- Positionable doors and accessories
- Waterslide decals
- Illustrated instructions
Clocking some 20 hours over a period of 1 month and half here is the 1/35 M1151 Enhanced Armored Carrier from Academy -kit # 13415-. The instructions are in the fold-out type consisting of 20 steps in 12 pages of which 2 pages are for painting and decal placement. Painting consist of either Sand color or NATO camouflage pattern. There is no engine on this model kit and when we get a ‘mock-up’ engine bottom which in my opinion doesn’t look bad at all. The chassis has some ejection pin marks to deal with but most of them will be on the invisible side of the model.
All the parts that comprise the suspension and crank cases are well molded and there are no fit problems to report. The tires have a nice pattern and are a 2 parts deal leaving the rims out of the painting process free of time consuming masking. The kit interior is very nice. The dashboard becomes one after some 10+ parts come together making it quite detailed once assembled. The same goes for the radio unit. Out-of-the box I don’t see the need to replace the dashboard and radio for a resin version unless (in my humble opinion) you have a chronic case of AMS. 2 old non-working ball points were the donors for the springs used as the handset coiled cable and the one hanging from the turret assembly.
The armored doors are a multi-part deal for each one of them. This is one example in which I prefer to use my airbrush to paint small parts rather than using a regular paint brush. The result is literally no brush strokes or ‘thick’ finish where visible. The look is more to scale and although it was more time consuming, there was no need to mask the clear parts.
The doors have some nice interior detail however they have no hinges. They are attached to the body via photo etched parts. I added a strip of masking tape painted in black to depict the hinge strap on the driver’s door. The seats are very nice but it would have been even nicer had they come with molded creases on them.
The body to chassis fit is exceptional followed by the top armored ‘basket” assembly which is a kit within the kit in its own right. The big round sprocket that rotates the basket from the inside has very nice and crisp detailed teeth. But on the downside the roof from the inside has no liner detail. Frankly this can be built from scratch using good reference pictures of the real thing.
SOME FINAL WORDS:
The suspension on this kit is around 2mm short. Unless you hang around your shelves with a measuring caliper, consider a resin set available to correct this issue. In real life, the M1151 Enhanced Armament Carrier is quite an imposing sight. This behemoth needs bulky tires to handle not only the colossal weight of this vehicle but also the terrain in which most of them are deployed. The supplied tires in the kit are a big let down. First, the tires are notably undersized and don’t have the Goodyear lettering most likely due to licensing issues. To add up to my tires discontent: this is one heavy piece of machinery. In motion or standing still, those tires will display some weight. This is a simple law of physics and I don’t know how the folks at Academy could have missed that.
My expectations for those included figures with model kits are not usually high and this one was no exception. The figures included with the Academy M1151 have considerable thick molding lines that requires cleaning. Odd because the rest of the parts on the sprue are very clean of molds lines and zero flash. My driver figure wouldn’t fit on its driver seat without having to modify its right leg. This will fixed later.
Even with these shortcomings this was a very nice build experience. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the Academy 1/35 M1151 model kit.
