All I can say is I'm really looking forward to this, despite any faults it may have.

John, newer Merk 4's now have a loaders hatch, the hatch can also be retro-fitted to older Merk 4's as well. Best, Mike

8.000 Yen = 70 Euro = 96 US-$$ Surely it will turn out to be less than that when it hits the shops, I didn't pay that much for the Hobby Boss AAVP with a full interior! Mike

The price of Hobbyboss kits in Japan is usually double their price in the Hong Kong stores.. so, it will probably be $35 - 40 when it hits stores like Luckymodel or Hobbyeasy. Glad they did the antislip surface. I hope they can think of an easy way to do the chain and ball thing.. especially the ball part. Hisham

Always thought the elimination of the loader's hatch on the -4 was a serious design flaw. Just like the older one hatch Shermans. If you take a bad hit and need to bail out before the tank burns, it's gonna be tough for the gunner and loader to squeeze through the TC's hatch at the same time. Also, having a second set of eyes "topside" along with a second MG can never be a bad thing. So the box art shows two guys sticking up through hatches but the photo of the turret only shows a single hatch? Interesting.... do they give you the choice of turret configurations in the kit?

Given how Hobby Boss likes to produce variants, It is pretty likely that they will follow with a LIC model... Now what they would follow with after that release, I could not guess... And yeah, I, too, wonder how HB will tackle the ball and chains. This looks like it will be a good one! Regards and Aloha, Johnny B.

Don't forget that all Merks have a "backdoor" to escape too. This one will definitely join my ever growing modern kits stash !! It is Xmas before time

Without going into to much detail the Loaders hatch was removed specifically to give the crew more protection from the air and from what I've read most crews prefer it this way.

can't wait to build it and compare with the academy one. btw - looks like academy will be releasing a LIC version of the mk 4.