One area of armour that the German Army pursued in the Second World War that never really went on to be developed by anyone post war was the so called Self Propelled gun, a large calibre cannon mounted to a tracked chassis with a limited traverse, due to the intended use being to engage enemy tanks from a hidden position at long ranges. The acme of this design was the Sturer Emil which took the Rheinmetall 12.8 cm K L/61 gun used in the JagdTiger and mounted it onto the Henschel VK3001 chassis that was also the platform for the Ferdinand/Elefant. Only two of these beasts saw action but aquitted themselves well.
This kit comes in a large tray and lid style box containing six light grey sprues as well as the lower hull tub, upper hull and upper superstructure, all also moulded in light grey. There are also the decals, two single length vinyl tracks, the instructions, and a full colour, glossy paint and markings guide.
The moulding detail is very good, the parts are clean of flash and have only the faintest of mould seams. There are some moulding sinkholes but for the most part they are in areas that will not be seen with the only ones that should cause any problems being on the underside of the fenders. The level of detail is very good, being sharp and clean and including faint raised lines inside the upper superstructure for locating the internal parts.
The chassis is based on a stretched version of the VK3001 which results in an odd looking gap between the last road wheel and the idler. The tub is a single moulded part with the suspension being made up of separate parts so it can easily be articulated if desired. Each road wheels and each idler are made up of two parts, an inner and an outer which gives the maximum detail on both the inside and outside of each wheel when assembled. I found this to be a really nice touch. The tracks are sigle length vinyl tracks but for this type of track are very well detailed including hollow guide horns which you almost never see on vinyl tracks.
The upper hull and suprstructure are each a single moulded piece. The tools all have moulded on clamps that actually look very good. The drivers hatch is a separate part so can be positioned open if desired though there is no interior detail on the hatch, nor any interior to the hull. There are two length of spare tracks to be added to the front of the hull as added armour protection.
The interior is very well appointed coming with very nice looking ammo racks holding the separate shells and cases. You get a wide range of personal gear attached to the interior sides such as MP40s in the mounting frames, handgrenades, gas mask containers, MP40 mag pouches, canteens, and a very nice radio. As well as ten shells mounted in the racks you get four individual shells, four individual cases and one assembled complete round.
The rear of the interior is occupied by the staggered rear floor and engine compartment. This part has the rear travel lock but it is intended to be moulded in the down position so the builder would need to do a little work on the floor to fill in the locator holes if it were to be modelled in the up position. The rest of the interior is taken up by the gun breech and the mount which has the two gunners seats. The area bellow the gun breech is difficult to see but not impossible so you can see the floor of the hull tub where there should be the torsion bars, but there are none so at the very least a few lengths of plastic rod should be included in this section to give the impression of the torsion bars that are visible.
The gun is definitely the dominant feature of this vehicle. The barrel is moulded as two halves with the muzzle brake also a part of each half, so care needs to be taken when joining these to get a good straight finish. Considering how dominant a part the gun is I personally think it is well worth the extra cost of getting a good after market aluminium barrel to replace the kit barrel. The breech is made up of 33 parts that results in a very good looking and well detailed part, which is important considering how much this part of the kit dominates the interior. The breech block is intended to be installed unglued so it can be moved.
Decal options are limited to two vehicles, both of the 3rd Company 521st S.Pz.Abt, which isn’t surprising as only two of these vehicles saw service so you wouldn’t expect a wide variety of markings. The only real difference between the two is that one has barrel kill rings and a white outline balkenkreuz while the other has no barrel rings and the black and white balkenkreuz.
This is a very nice kit with a very good level of detail, good moulding and good assembly, having easy and accurate fit. It makes up into a very impressive looking piece and if you were to go the extra mile with individual link tracks and an aluminium gun barrel this will turn out as a kit anyone can be proud of.
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