Oshkosh HEMTT Prime Mover
1/135th scale plastic kit from Trumpeter
Assembled and painted in 2021
HEMTT _ Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck
Sums it up really, and the chassis has been adapted for several uses, from a fuel truck, cargo carrier, Fitters repair vehicle and this version of the prime mover to transport tracked vehicles or tactical missile launchers.
The first time I saw a kit of this vehicle was available was the Nimix resin offering. It was cast in resin with a lot of brass etch frets, and to be honest was totally beyond my skill set.
It didn’t stop me buying one though, and it’s still lurking about in the loft somewhere.
It’ll never get built, because to be honest, the number of parts and complexity of the kit is a little terrifying.
A much more reasonable prospect was the Revel / Italeri offering in plastic. The first version being the cargo truck ( with or without a set of missile pods to put in the back, depending on which kit you picked up ).
It was perfectly good for the time, and I think I got a third place at the IPMS Scottish Nationals armour class in the misty and distant past.
A fuel truck version using the same chassis was soon available too.
Italeri also jumped on the “Post Apocalypse” bandwagon, adding more parts to the cargo version to up-armour the cab and turn the cargo bed into a gun platform for four machine guns.
Then along comes Trumpeter, adding a Fitters vehicle and this Prime Mover to the choice.
Focusing on the Prime Mover, it’s about twice the price of the Revell ? Italeri offerings, but then when you see what you get in the box, you can see why.
The chassis is a lot more detailed, as too is the inside of the cab, and generally speaking the modeller will have a lot more to put together, and although there are a few things like hydraulic brake hoses that could be added to the rear axles, and possibly some super-detailing on other areas, the higher cost is well worth it.
I’ve got to admit that the Oshkosh HEMTT is one of my favourite “soft skin” vehicles, and although I do own a few of the kits, I’m really a little disgusted with myself for only having built two of them.
However, Having owned up to that, lets move along to the kit.
Photo #1 is the box art, it just looks cool, and mean, and ugly.
Yup, I love it.
So much so that I couldn’t wait to get it started, forgot to take photos along the way and ended up at the point of photos #2 and #3 before I knew it.
In fact I’ve got most of the construction done into sub assemblies and at this point I’ve done a three colour NATO scheme using Tamiya colours through an airbrush, then weathered with Tamiya Desert Sand and Deck Tan through a couple of Etch Steel weathering masks.
I left the cab off at this point, partly so I could paint the inside before adding the shell, and so that I could add the decals to the dashboard etc.
Of note – the dust in the tyre treads is a 50:50 mix of Buff Titanium Oil paint and White Spirit, applied with a large brush and then wiped off with a soft cloth to leave the paint in the treads. It’s almost impossible to get all the paint off the walls of the tyres, but this looks like dust that has adhered to the sidewalls anyway.
Photo #4 shows the cab shell at the same stage. I’ve augmented the dust effect from the two steel etch masks on the roof of the cab ny adding White Spirit to the area and then spotting on Buff Titanium Oils, allowing the paint to spread out in uneven patches.
The kit is a lot more involved that the much older Revell / Italeri offerings, so I should have taken “in construction” photos, however,
photo #5 shows the truck finished and on a base.
A few close up shots to show off the details, but you really don’t get an idea of the size of this thing…… I needed to add a figure.
Modern tankers are fairly easy to find in plastic, resin offerings being a lot less common, and after looking around the Internet, I was struggling for a resin figure that would do as a driver for this.
In the end I had to get the Miniart set of Modern US tankers at rest, fairly well moulded, although seam lines needed some clean-up, and the best one of them was the guy standing in a relaxed pose leaning against something.
Once construction of that was done, it was a case of checking where he could stand, and I chose to have him leaning against the open doorway of the cab.
Normally I’d swap heads for a Hornet offering, but I couldn’t find an applicable set, and the Miniart one isn’t too bad really – OK stop being a snob Hopwood, the plastic one’s pretty good actually.
Photos #6 and #7 show the clothing pretty much painted, using a mix of Mars Brown and Light Red oils and then building mid-tones and highlights with Buff Titanium.
In photo #8 the figure is just about complete. I chose to paint an African-American, as the facial structure looked suited to that rather than a Caucasian, and it’s been a while since I’ve painted a dark skin-tone.
The green woollen hat harks back to him having served in cooler climates, and the greenish hue to the vest is also a nod in that direction..
Irritatingly, the post to hang the hydraulic pipes on for connection to a trailer had broken off and been lost when I took these shots. I’d managed to make some nice coiled tubes to hang on it too. I have no idea where they’ve got too, and I really should just bite the bullet and make another set.
As for the base, a section of reclaimed Portuguese Oak – sounds fancy, but I got it from a local reclaimed wood place – cut to length, and with a little treatment from an electric plane and orbital sander.
A bit of gloss varnish, some emery paper fastened on with double sided tape for the tarmac and lines sprayed on after using Tamiya Masking Tape to keep the paint where I wanted it.
Final thoughts.
Oh this is such a good kit !
It’s a lot more expensive than the Revell / Italeri range of Oshkosh variants, but it’s a lot more detailed and it’ll take you at least twice as long to build it.
I put the Revell Gun Truck version of the Oshkosh together shortly after making this and was quite shocked at how much detail is missing from the much older base kit compared to Trumpeter’s offering.
Whilst the Revell kit is OK and in fairness, they don’t actually make a tractor variant of the HEMTT, if you’re adding a lot of mud, cargo and other stuff, then it’s really not going to make all that much difference I guess. But the Trumpeter kit is so much better in my eyes that I’ve gone out and bought another.
Trumpeter now offer the Fitters variant with a slightly longer chassis and a full rear body with loads of engineering gear on it.
Yes, I’ve bought one of those too, and whilst the box on this tractor version is pretty big, the Engineer’s variant is about half as deep again. Oh and a lot more expensive.
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