Kit Review : Masterbox German Tank Hunters 1944

Towards the end of the war the Allied armoured superiority in numbers led to a large number of German anti-tank teams armed with Panzerfausts and Panzerschrecks roaming around taking a not inconsequential toll on the opposition’s tanks, proving that a man with the right weapon is the match for an armoured vehicle.

Coming in the usual Masterbox end opening box on the usual single dark yellow sprue you get three figures portraying an anti-tank team. The mouldings are sharp and mostly clean with some minor flash to remove. The level of detail is good including different expressions on the very nicely moulded faces. There is a small ammount of filling and sanding required when assembled to eliminate all the join lines but this is nothing out of the usual and in line with what you get with similar kits.

There really isn’t all that much to this kit, thirty nine parts making up the three figures together with their personal equipment and weapons. One figure wears the SS Type 2 Camouflaged smock with the foliage loops, low boots and gaiters, the other two wear standard field uniforms with high boots. Oddly these two also have moulded on gas mask container straps though no gask mask containers are included. Three helmets are provided with two field caps provided as an alternative option.

Each man gets two triple rifle ammo pouches and a canteen, with two also getting breadbags. No other personal equipment is included. For weapons there is a Panzerfaust 60 with the sights folded closed, a Panzerschreck and two Steyr Mannlicher M95/30 short rifles. The Panzerschreck overall is well done though the front sight needs hollowing out and the rear frame is solid so idealy should be replaced with wire or at least be drilled out to look more like the proper wire frame. The Steyr Mannlicher rifles are an interesting inclusion as these rifles were used by Hungarian troops in the german army, which would indicate that these figures were from a Hungarian unit.

Despite being an older set and thus requiring a little more clean-up this is still a nice set of figures. But more than just being a nice little set of figures what makes this set especially nice is that you get the Steyr Mannlicher M95/30 short rifles, denoting these troops as most likely being Austro-Hungarian which is very unusual in kits as most “German” troops are just generic germans with little if anything to denote the many and varied non-german units that served as part of the german army.

Click on thumbnails to enlarge images.

                                  

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