If Hitler were still around today I suspect he would have been a fan of the TV series “Home Improvement”. It seems that as the war progressed he developed a fixation with “Bigger is Better” so tanks became bigger and bigger, guns became bigger and bigger, everything seemed to be leading towards the biggest, baddest tank a man could humanly field. Luckily these mainly never made it off the drawing board. This one however almost made it into the field getting as far as the construction stage where it was found half built by the allies.
I should preface this by saying that little to nothing is known about how these self propelled guns were intended to be used in the field, whether or not it was supposed to have trails for use when firing from onboard, whether or not it carried ammunition onboard or used a tender, and in either case how they were handled. Likewise no information on how the gun was mounted and dismounted, or how the platform used for the deployed gun was carried when in transit, other than possibly that the hinged rear frame was used to lift and lower this into position and carry it when in transit. I could find no information on what that large hinged frame at the rear was used for or how it was used and the theory that it was used for the turntable base is just that, theory. There are a lot of unknowns about this beast, but that is one of the pitfalls to building Paper Panzers.
This is one BIG kit, measuring 347mm long, that’s almost 14 inches. It comes in a suitably big box that contains the fifteen sprues and the very large hull tub, all moulded in light grey plastic. Also included are two long, single length vinyl tracks, a small photo-etched brass fret, two springs, a very small decal sheet, the instruction book and a colour painting guide.
The mould quality overall is good with one major flaw, there are a LOT of quite large injector pin marks all over the place and many of them will be visible on the completed kit, especially those on the internal wall faces. These will require quite a bit of clean up. But looking past those the rest of what you get is very good. No flashing, minimal mould seams, no misaligned parts and the fit is very good. There is a lot of very good detail and all the parts are sharp and crisp. The instruction book ( I call it a book rather than a booklet because it’s rather hefty compared to most kits ) is very clear and easy to follow.
The chassis construction on this is very simple and straight forward. Each of the twenty two suspension arms fits into the lower hull using a D-shaped hole to make sure they all line up the same so if you wish to articulate any of the roadwheels you’ll need to drill these holes out to be round. Each roadwheel set is made up of two roadwheels and a centre hub. These roadwheels have some very delicate bolt detail which you would need to be very careful not to obscure with paint. The idlers and sprockets are also simple arrangements.
The tracks are single length “rubber band” style vinyl tracks which look okay but could have been done much better. These are very long and so you will get a good enough sag appearance if they are secured properly around the sprockets and idelrs. This kit though is a prime candidate for aftermarket individual link tracks as with the size of the finished model the tracks are very prominent, and considering the cost of the kit I personally believe the extra cost to be a worthwhile investment.
The engine on this is a little mini masterpiece. You get a full engine, transmission and crew cabin for the driver and radio operator, with those sub-assemblies and the engine bay comprising nearly 150 parts which is lot more parts than some of the average vehicle kits out there have altogether. There is a wealth of detail in these and the finish on them is excellent. It seems such a shame that so little of them will be visible on the completed model unless you come up with some sort of construction/maintenance setting that allows for the engine deck to be removed.
The hull and upper superstructure on this is very big and once complete leaves you quite a vast, blank palette to cover when it comes to painting time as there isn’t a lot of detail on the exterior. The engine deck gets two separate engine access hatches which can be positioned open to display the engine, and photo etch mesh parts are included for the fan housings and radiator intakes. There is also a separate cover plate for the the driver’s and radio operator’s area, though to do it removed will require drilling out all the bolt heads to make holes and adding bolt holes to the coving. The driver and radio operator do get separate hatches so if you have this plate on you can still see a fair bit of the interior.
The fighting compartment is rather cavernous, being designed primarily to house the gun which would have been able to fire either from within the vehicle, or could be removed and placed on the ground for firing leaving the vehicle to act as an ammunition carrier. Most of what is in the interior then is reinforcing framework for the sides. As mentioned these sides have some rather large injector pins marks that will need to be filled and sanded to remove them. There are also several crew seats lining the interior but no shell racks and no ammunition is included for the gun, though as I mentioned back at the beginning no-one seems to know if it would have carried ammunition, though personally, to me the setup seems to indicate room for shell racks at the rear on each side, but that is just supposition.
The gun is again a kit within itself and quite a big one at that, containing around 170 parts to make up the gun, the cradle its removable platform and the turntable base used in the dismounted setup. Some of the parts are very small and again the detail is very, very good. The gun can be built either in transit mounted on the vehicle, or deployed, mounted on the turntable. When built it retains the ability to be fully elevated and depressed with working recuperators and it has a moveable rear platform that is up when in transit and then can be rotated around and under to form the rear footing when deployed. This uses two supplied tension springs to hold it in position.
The barrel on this is two sections, each moulded in two halves with a separate muzzle brake which is moulded as one piece with a separate end piece. You’re required to drill out the vent holes in the muzzle brake and there are a LOT of them. The barrel on this kit is such a dominant feature, both in and out of the vehicle itself, that I really believe the best option is to replace the plastic kit barrel with an aftermarket RB Model aluminium barrel with brass muzzle brake as it is a fantastic looking barrel and comparitively inexpensive.
The decals incuded in this kit could be called minimalistic ( they could be called worse ), as they consist solely of two lone Balkankreuz crosses. I know this is a Paper Panzer and never made it out onto the field of play , but when you build a “what if” vehicle I still think it is appropriate to include some “what if” markings. An A4 sized full colour gloosy print is provided for the painting guide.
There are some niggles with this kit, mainly the large injector pin marks that need filling, but also for the price of this kit I think it deserved some more decals, some extra shells and individual link tracks, or at least link and length tracks. But the clean up can be dealt with and tracks can be bought so those points aside there is no escaping the fact that this is one very impressive kit that still includes a huge ammount of detail and makes up into a stunning piece that will dominate anything around it. If you can handle the price and you aren’t put off by paper Panzers then this is one very worthwhile build.
A review of the RB Models Aluminium Barrel can be seen HERE
Click on thumbnails to enlarge images.
i’am having trouble putting the gun into the tank it seens to me the gun does not fit into the tank no mater how much push and pulling to get it in and the walls are hard to put on well this is a very bad kit with the parts half molded what can i do to revive this kit even tho putty is not and option because theres no cracks to fill-in can i have pictures of your tank up here so i can see in side the tank and how it sould look as well as putting the gun in that would really help thx
Sorry, I no longer have it, though other than the sinkholes I found it to be a very good kit.