M3A2 Bradley Cavalry Fighting Vehicle

After you get the Bradley out of the box and stop checking out all the eye candy, your hands being probing the exterior to discover what items may open and close. Unfortunately, this is where the Forces of Valor line falls apart. Now, the Bradley is an exception to this rule to some extent. The companion Abrams tank has two opening hatches, which are wonderful, but that is it. The Bradley has a hatch for the commander and one for the gunner too. The hatches are both nicely sculpted and the two tone paints apps on the interior are nice touches as well, but the details just stop after that. No seats, nothing. Just deep holes to stick the legs of your figures into. This is comparable to any GI Joe vehicle, but in the world of 1:18, this is a basic effort.

The one element that makes up for this is the fully accessible troop area. An Infantry Fighting Vehicle is called a battle taxi in the field and this is the reason why. The door is thick and feels substantial when you drop it to the floor. You can feel the 1:18 scale thud as you reveal the passenger cabin. Inside, benches line both sides and you can fit four figures inside. Joe fans are going to be somewhat upset because of the 4″ scale of the GI Joe figures limits how easily they sit. I can assure the Joes ARE to scale with this vehicle, but figures don’t bend like real people. Hasbro is great for articulation, but they still haven’t found a solution to bending some limbs more than 90 degrees.

Although the crew compartment is an extra detail on this model, there is nothing beyond this. No one man opening door that is obviously molded into the rear hatch, no opening crew compartment top hatch, not even a driver’s access hatch. An opening driver’s hatch, one that could seat a figure, would have raised this vehicles final grade by a whole letter in my opinion. I hope that in the future Unimax gives us accessible driver’s hatches.

The most noticeable difference in the Unimax and 21st Century versions is the engine compartment, which the Unimax version doesn’t have. The lack of an engine compartment doesn’t detract from the vehicles overall play value, it’s just a feature that some collectors might be expecting when they purchase this vehicle.