Adding an interior to a tank is always a popular upgrade option, though usually an expensive one that requires adventuring into resin upgrades with the inherent concern on fit. AFV Club have eliminated all the pitfalls here by providing an interior themselves for their Sturmtiger kit ( see review HERE ) that is multi-media and designed to fit from the outset. I can only assume that they chose not to include it as part of the original kit to keep the price down.
The kit contains four dark green sprues, a clear plastic replacement superstructure, a brass photo etch fret and sixteen resin parts for making up the transmission. The quality on all this matches that of the Sturmtiger kit itself. This is intended to be used with the AFV Club Sturmtiger though it can also be used with the Tamiya and Italeri kits with a little work here and there to get some bits to fit correctly, and as the breech for the Mortar is already included in the AFV club Sturmtiger kit it isn’t included with this kit. This set is intended to be built along with the base kit so you will need to work with both sets of instructions at some points.
The fighting compartment interior takes up most of the kit, providing all the internal wall details for the superstructure as well as all the mounting racks for holding the gigantic shells that the Sturmtiger fired. These are rather fiddly assemblies with a lot of delicate parts and attention to the instructions is needed to make sure everything goes in the right place. The underside detail for the roof is also provided, including the winch and hoist arrangment for handling the shells into position. This again has a lot of parts, some of which are quite small and delicate. Finally there is the fighting compartment floor with the shell rollers.
A clear superstructure is provided which can be used to replace the Sturmtiger kit superstructure so that the interior can be displayed, but if you chose to use this then a lot of care needs to be taken with the gluing and painting of these internal parts, as everything will be seen from the outside including excess glue blobs. If you choose not to use the clear superstructure then additional internal wall panels are provided to give a proper look to the wall thicknesses.
For the front end a complete transmission as well as drivers and radio operators seats are provided made from resin. This did make me wonder if a third party had provided these parts. The transmission itself is accurate and very good looking, as are the seats. There are however quite few noticeable absences from the front end, predominantly the large driver’s instrument panel that should be to his right above the transmission, but there are also none of the smaller details that should be in the driver’s area such as the parking brake lever, the wheel for the armoured vision slot cover, the steering sticks and the pedals. He does get a steering wheel though it is the full sized one, not the trimmed down version found in later Tigers. An easy fix though as it just requires the removal of the two lowest radial spokes and to shorten the ends of the wheel.
There are two other noticeable absences, there are no radios included, nor is there a firewall between the fighting compartment and the engine bay. The way this has been left suggests an engine and engine bay set may be in the offing, but even if it is it would have seemed logical to have provided the firewall here rather than have a rather noticeable opening through into an empty engine bay. Other smaller omissions which may be oversights but may be accurate of the real vehicle are that there are no fire extinguishers, no personal weapons or any form or mounts for weapons and personal equipment, nor any ammo stowage for the MG34 that is included with the kit.
If you want a complete and accurate interior this is a good start, but it isn’t perfect. To get a totally complete interior will require some scratchbuilding and/or the addition of resin upgrades like an engine and a firewall. It may be that these parts are in the pipeline from AFV Club, but right now you will need to add your own detail to the driver’s compartment, ammo for the MG34, radios, and a firewall at least. What is included though is very, very good and will more than suffice for a “through the hatch” view.
Click on thumbnails to enlarge images.
