Battlefront Miniatures - M48 Patton and World War III: Team Yankee Infantry review We take a look at Battlefront's M48 Patton kit that balances complexity, realism, and a small amount of parts. A lot of the recent big releases from Battlefront have been fun starter sets, offering quick pick-up-and-play games, and providing a ton of value due to them being packed with plenty of plastic kits. While that’s great for newcomers to the 15mm range it’s not so fun for existing players, as these are mostly repackaged old products. It’s a real pleasure, therefore, to get a great-looking new kit from Battlefront, and one that fits rather nicely with this issue’s Vietnam vehicles article. The M48 Patton was originally developed while the Korean War was being waged but it was in Vietnam that it first saw extensive action. The new M48A3 model, using diesel instead of the more volatile gasoline of earlier models, didn’t do anything too dramatic in a war that saw very little in the way of major tank battles. The Patton performed more of a support role, and it did so very effectively, often used to safely clear the ground of mines. Its service doesn’t stop there. It saw action in the Indo-Pakistani wars, in Africa, and in the Middle East, with Iranian forces taking M48 tanks to battle in the Iran-Iraq War. Plastic pleasure This new kit has the balance that the best plastic sets offer; it sits neatly in the sweet spot between complexity, realism, and a minimal number of parts. Designed by veteran vehicle designer, Tim Adcock, there’s nothing to be faulted in the way the tank goes together, with mostly large pieces and just a few small details to add, such as the stowage and Xenon searchlight above the gun tube. There are three different big guns to choose from, shown right, and this gives you some options to play with and offers more variety in your gaming. Vietnam fans in the office would have loved an option with the machine gun removed from the commander’s cupola and mounted above it but we’re getting very demanding in wishing for that common modification and there is a spacer to raise the turret higher. All in all, this is a neat new kit that adds more variety to Battlefront’s armour options and is a pleasure to build. We hear rumblings of more exciting new Battlefront goodies on the way soon too and will make sure to cover them in a future issue once we manage to get our hands on them! Hot off the casting machine! The folks at Battlefront also gave us a sneak peek at some new plastic infantry frames, which will be
