Military Model Scene

For soft-skin fans this is the standard 2.5ton, single-axle trailer to go with the 4x4 truck of the modern US Army Family of Medium Tactical Trucks.  There are kits available in the range by Trumpeter of both the 2-axle Light (LMTV) truck and the 3-axle Medium (MTV) trucks, and with both standard and armoured cabs.
As for this little trailer, it is neatly moulded on four sprues, two copies of the smaller sprue plus 2 larger ones, carrying the parts for the two basic sub-assemblies for the chassis and then the trailer body.  A small sprue of clear parts provide the lights and a small fret of etch brass with some detail fittings, plus some wire-cored parcel tie to make the coiled brake and electrical connectors.  There are some knock-out pin marks in places, but generally hidden away once parts are joined together, and some fine flash in places where mating edges need to be just tidied up with a sharp craft knife before you apply the glue if you want a good join.  Nothing significant, just worth looking out for as you go through the build.  A couple of join seams, such as on the rear crash beam to tidy up, and some mould seams to clean up on some parts when you remove them from the sprue (on the springs among a few other parts).  The chassis is made up from side beams plus a number of cross members, a couple of which have additional elements to be assembled for them, and while they fit well, just be careful to make sure everything sets square.
The smallest parts are the 27 tiny little tie-down hooks to be fitted around the load bed.  No problem with these, except they are very small so be careful not to drop any on the carpet once you cut them off the sprues.  The box art illustrates the trailer with a tilt cover, but no cover or tilt frames are included in the kit, so if you want one you'll have to make one of your own, or maybe wait for one of the aftermarket producers to do a resin one for it.
Fit of parts is good and the assembly sequence works well I found.  I got it into the two main sub-assemblies which will need painting before finally fixing the body onto the chassis.  This also applies to the rear cross member where the rear lights are mounted inside the two parts of this cross beam, so paint them and the inside before fitting the two parts together.  The two paint options suggested in their colour illustrated guide is for either a plain sand finish, or the standard European scheme camouflage of Green/Brown/Black, which is the one I went for, as seen in the pictures below.  Coupled up to one of the trucks this will make for an interesting combination, or as a handy accessory to a diorama.

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Robin