Kit No. 35115
I will admit to being a huge fan of the Sd.Kfz 250 and 251 series vehicles, in large part due to the almost endless variations possible to come up with. These vehicles were the true workhorse of the German Army being fitted with pretty much anything that could possibly be fitted. This kit from Tamiya represents the Sd.Kfz 250/9 version, a light armoured reconnaissance vehicle fitted with the lightly armoured turret of the Sd.Kfz 222 armed with a 2cm KwK 38 cannon and an MG34 machine gun.
The kit comes in a smallish tray and lid type box containing three dark yellow sprues, the top and bottom of the vehicle body, an instruction booklet and a sheet of decals. It also includes a section of soft black mesh for the anti-grenade screens. The mouldings are tidy with the detail nice and sharp and minimal cleanup of mould seams and a few knock out marks required.
This is an older kit, somewhere around 20 years old now and it shows in some of the simplified details such as the moulded on tools and rolled tarps. Despite this there is still alot of nice features included in this kit including a full interior with a good level of detail including a very nice weapon mount, full transmission, and all the usual mounted equipment found inside these vehicles. There is also a very nice complete engine which complements the option to position the engine access covers either open or closed. You can also position the rear door open or closed. All that is missing is the battery box which for some reason everyone overlooks when making kits with engines. On the downside there are no clear parts to use for the vision blocks and some of the detailing is a little heavy in places.
The suspention arms are all moulded as part of the lower tub so articulating the wheels will take a little surgery. One nice feature in this kit though is the tracks which come as link and length tracks with much better detail and a more natural fit than the usual single length vinyl tracks.
The turret is one of those parts that is a little thick, being more than double what it should be in scale thickness. This can really only be fixed by either thinning down the sides by hand, replacing them with Photo-etch or rebuilding the turret from thin evergreen plastic sheet. As mentioned there is a soft black mesh provided with which to add the mesh screens to the anti-grenade covers that are mounted atop the open-topped turret. These covers should be able to open to the side but the kit provides no hinge detail to depict this.
The 2cm KwK 38 is reasonably well made though again rather simplified in detail, the MG34 suffers from Tamiya’s old technigue of moulding the bipod attached and as a single leg. Tamiya have recently re-released their Sd.Kfz 222 kit with PE mesh for the screens and a metal gun barrel so we may one day see that option in this kit as well.
One figure is included, looking through field glasses. The creases on his trousers seems a little odd but other than that the detail in good wth sharp detail. He wears a soft officers cap and a holstered sidearm. No other personal equipment is included other than three Kar 98K rifles.
Decals and a paint and marking guide are included for three vehicles – 116th Panzer Division ; 23rd Pazer Division ; 24th Panzer Division.
This kit falls a little above the middle, it has quite a bit of detail, but it also has a lot of simplified detail and parts that are a bit heavy. It still makes up into a nice kit but to really get them most out of it you need to be prepared to put in the time and effort to updetail it.
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