I tend to game a lot of World War II Pacific theater battles. Though I had steered clear of the 1941-42 campaign in the Philippines, I gave in to the siren's song and decided to game an early war scenario. Though I have a LOT of 15mm Japanese, the one thing I did not have were Type 89 medium tanks. This posed a problem as the 7th Tank Regiment was equipped mostly with Type 89, and I'd found a battle to game that included the 7th.

Off to market! Quality Castings provides the only 15mm Type 89 on the market today, so I broke done and bought two from my local lead supplier, warweb.com. Service was superb, as always.

The Type 89 casting measures 2" long (2 1/8" to the end of the ditching trail), and 15/16th of an inch high and wide. Using the O'Leary scale, this scales out to 93% of length, 99% of height and 118% of width. Not too bad -- it's a little wide, but it's the only Type 89 on the market. What can you do?

I had purchased two models of the Type 89-B. The two castings are of markedly different quality. One casting is fairly crisp, with the detail cast cleanly and in good relief. Hatch covers, bolt heads, towing hooks and stowage such as shovels and axes are cleanly cast on the model. On the other hand, the second casting looks sand blasted -- like the mold is on its last legs. Surface details such as the hatches, driver's port and bow machinegun all have a soft, hazy melted appearance. Not a very appealing casting and certainly not on par with Quality Castings' and other manufacturers' quality for new kits produced today. Fifteen years ago, we would have thought nothing of this, but things have changed. As the casting is mechanically sound -- all the parts fit together fine -- I'm hoping that a coat of paint and some weathering will conceal its surface flaws.

The detail that is present provides an interesting model. The kit comes with the ditching trail cast to the hull, with a large tarp piled on top of the trail. Painted, these should provide a great spearhead for my infantry regiment as they march on Manila.

The "good" tank rates about a B+, while the "bad" model gets a grade of C. What this tells me is that you will need to check the casting before purchasing to verify the quality.

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