From the Seventies the French army introduced for the AMX 13 family a new track with rubber pads to minimize road damage. All the plastic kits except the Tamiya one include the original all steel tracks. So this set released by Takom is welcome.

Writings on the package state this set suits to the Heller and Tamiya kits. Having no sprockets of these models at hand to test the set I only tested the fit around the Takom sprocket.

In the box you get 20 light grey plastic sprues which do not come in any bag. The sprues hold the metal links and the rubber pads which are separately molded. In total you have 180 links and rubber pads which is enough to build two tracks of 85 links and gives you 10 spare links of which 4 will be used to replace the spare tracks on the tank glacis after modification of the bracket. In reality while Takom asks you to assemble 85 links, 84 are enough to represent a track with some tension.

The links look like the real ones. Takom did cast the guide horns offset. This was imposed by the screws securing the rubber pads. The screws are present but they are a bit high and should be closer to the horns but this will be little visible. The rubber pads have the right shape and fit the right way to the links thanks to offset pins.

The only low point is the fitting of the tracks around the sprockets. Indeed without a thorough sanding of the lower edge of each link the fitting around the sprocket is not perfect. This will require some extra work to get the expected rendition as shown in the last picture.

Conclusion

This set of tracks is a very good substitute to the all steel tracks coming in the Takom and Heller models. It will allow the replacement of the rubber band tracks in the Tamiya kit for those who do not like this type. Its price is the huge advantage over the metal tracks which are more expensive by approximately three-fold.

04/2020