CV9040B
Ref : Academy #13217 CV9040B Swedish Infantry Fighting Vehicle

The CV9040B is a tracked infantry fighting vehicle developed by Sweden starting from 1983. The chassis was designed by Hägglunds while Bofors developed the turret. The first vehicles were ordered in 1993. As soon as 1994, the first CV9040B, an improved version with firing on the move capability, were ordered. Compared with the basic version, the CV9040B is fitted with a new 40mm automatic cannon, an improved fire control system and a CCD camera also used as a back-up sight.

The production of CV90 for the Swedish army ended in 2002. In total 354 IFVs, 30 ADA vehicles, 42 FIST-Vs, 56 Command vehicles, 26 ARVs and 1 electronic warfare vehicle were issued to the army.
The CV9040B has been deployed to Liberia in small quantities along with the C version featuring an enhanced protection.
The CV9040B has a crew of three and can carry 7 soldiers.

The kit

The kit is released by Academy and comprises 5 sand plastic sprues, 2 hull halves, 2 black plastic sprues for the track links, 1 black plastic sprue for the track pads, 1 clear plastic sprue, 1 pair of vinyle tracks, 1 sheet of photoetched parts, 1 sheet of decals, 1 turned aluminum barrel and polycaps.
The carving is good and the level of detail is good too. The fit is quite satisfactory. Academy gives the option of showing all the hatches open but the inner faces have numerous ejection marks that will require a lot of work to do so.

The instruction booklet comprises 12 pages. The first one gives a paint chart in several brands range. Pages 2 to 10 deal with the assembly. Page 11 gives the camouflage scheme and the decals placement instructions. Unfortunately it is black and white. The last page shows the various sprues.

The assembly

It traditionally starts with the chassis and the running gear. The roadwheels arms fit well. You just need to check their correct alignment. The roadwheels and the sprockets will be installed after the painting. Polycaps allow to snap them without the need of glue. The outer half roadwheel comes in two parts because of its particular shape. This will ease the painting process. In fact, on many pictures of actual CV90s, we can notice that the rim often appears in bare aluminum. The inner face of the inner roadwheels is detailed.

At step 4, the clear parts J3 and J6 are not glued. They will be after the painting. The black-out lights E7 do not fit well with the headlight blocks E5 and E6. You need to sand them a bit.
 

The rear panel is an easy job. Academy gives the option of building the door open or closed. The hinges parts are different according your choice. As stated above, the door inner face has ejection marks to fill. However, as there is no interior, fixing the door won't be enough.
The lower part of the skis rack is given as either a single plastic part or a plastic frame with a PE mesh part to glue on. This option is more realistic.

It is advised not to glue the antenna E53 as this stage to avoid breaking it.
 

The upper hull is nicely molded and shows anti-slip surfaces. All the hatches come as separate parts. The driver one as 3 vision blocks which can be put aside waiting for the painting.
On the roof behind the turret, Academy omitted to represent the towing cable and its brackets. The troop compartment hatches can be shown open. In this case, you must not glue the hatch halves as a single large hatch but have them folded.
To end with this part, the rear lights are not glued yet.

The turret comes in two parts, a ring with lugs to fix it to the hull and the turret. Like for the driver hatch, the 10 vision blocks are not glued at this stage. The antennas bases look too thin and could be replaced by others. The 6 Galix tubes have an ejection mark that you need to fill.

The vehicle commander hatch has a mobile hinge system. Unfortunately, to keep it working you have to sand the hinges D21 and D22. The lock D47 should be glued offset too.
The gunner sight comes as a clear part. It is protected by an armored housing. it is necessary to paint the sight and the inside of the housing prior to gluing the parts. The shutter of the housing can be open or closed.

The 40mm cannon comes as either a single plastic part or an aluminum tube on which are glued a plastic collar and a recoil sleeve. The cannon assembly allows 3 possible elevations. However the dust cover D16 is designed for a gun at the horizontal. Its simple design allows to the average model builder to modify it for the desired elevation.
The CV9040 is fitted with a 7.62mm coaxial MG which is not issued by Academy.

The build ends with the assembly of the both hull halves and the tracks. The bravest will choose the separate links tracks. However the work will be important as it needs on the one hand to glue each trackpad and on the other hand to fill the both ejection marks on the inner track link faces. Even if you do it for the visible track links only it will be time consuming. Moreover, the detail is not really better than on the vinyl tracks. For example, the track pins retaining bolts are not present. But these tracks will help representing the sagging due to the absence of return rollers.
The vinyl tracks can't be glued. You need to melt them like the old tracks in the 70-80s.

The decoration

A single scheme is proposed by Academy. It is the 3-tone black, dark green and light green splinter scheme. The decal sheet gives two registration numbers without any unit indication.
The different shades are inspired from an article in the Swedish site Plastic warfare. The black is XF69 NATO Black, the light green is a mix of XF5 Flat Green, XF55 Deck Tan and X26 Park Green, the dark green is a mix of XF26 Deep Green and XF55 Deck Tan.

Conclusion

The kit builds quite easily and allows to represent a vehicle in service with the Swedish army on the Swedish soil only. The vehicles which were deployed to Liberia had been slightly modified. So to depict one of them, you will have to scratch the modifications. To do so, it will be useful to refer to the book published by Tankograd.

Reference:
Tankograd International Special 8003 CV90 Swedish Infantry Combat Vehicle
Prime Portal Thord Wedman's walkaround
 

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