There are many that feel that Germany copied the design of the T-34 to come up with the Panther, and others that will say they are wrong, but right or wrong there is no denying that the Russians weren’t shy on adopting a good idea themselves, and it is no secret that the lessons learnt from the encounters with the German Sturmgeschutz resulted in a parallel development in Russian armour culminating in the JSU-152.
This kit is a new release from Tamiya, coming out in 2009. It comes in the usual Tamiya tray and lid type box and consists of six sprues, the hull tub, and the upper hull body ( in two parts ) all moulded in dark olive green. Also included is a small sprue of clear parts, a small photo-etched fret, two single length vinyl tracks, three different sizes of vinyl poly-caps, a length of string for making cables, a sheet of decals, and the instructions.
The mouldings are the typical Tamiya quality which is to say very good with no flash, minimal clean up of mould seams and nice clean, sharp detail. In typical Tamiya fashion there isn’t a huge parts count with some areas simplified a little more than they would be in an equivalent Dragon of AFV Club kit. The instructions are clear and easy to follow making assembly very easy.
The chassis consists of a single piece hull tub with individual parts for the suspension arms, which allows them to be easily articulated if desired to show the wheels passing over uneven surfaces. The tub has good detailing including the underside covers and the bumpstops. The roadwheels are each held on with poly caps covered by separate hubs with the return rollers and sprockets made the same way but using different sized poly caps so make sure you insert the correct size into the correct wheel/sprocket/return roller.
They all have very nice, sharp detail with the roadwheels and return rollers having some very nice surface texture. There are some small injector pin knock out marks on the back surface of the roadwheels though these really aren’t very noticeable, but they are there so will need dealing with for those who like to clean up all parts.
The tracks come in two options, one, as mentioned, are single length vinyl “rubber band” style, which aren’t the worst looking vinyl tracks around. The other set are injection moulded link-and-length tracks which sort of bridge the gap between individual link tracks and one piece tracks, in that there is still some tedious clean-up and assembly, but not quite as much, with the trade off being better looking tracks with a more natural fit. These also come with an assembly jig to get the right shape to the upper run of links. On the down side each link has two small injector pin knock out marks on their inner surface which will need to be removed.
The engine deck forms one half of the upper body and comes with photo-etched mesh screens for the engine grills. The engine deck louvers are moulded as two parts with one half of the louvers being moulded as part of the engine deck and then every second louver being moulded on a second part which fits in to ones moulded as part of the deck to fill in the missing louvers. This allows for some very nice, thin looking louvers. The angle of them though does allow you to see down into the empty engine bay so best to cover these from underneath with something black.
The casement forms the other half of the upper body and it includes some good looking weld beads and good surface textures. There is no interior, which doesn’t really matter if you close the hatches, but all the hatches have nicely done interior detail so could easily be posed open but for the lack of an interior. So a little more interior detail would have been nice, but that’s probably just me being fussy. Also as part of the upper body it seems Tamiya have learnt from past mistakes as this kit includes parts for closing in the undersides of the sponsons.
The tools and fuel drums are well done though like most of Tamiya’s kits would benefit from PE straps and clamps. There is some very nice detail though with things like the grab handles being very delicately reproduced. When you open this kit and sort through the parts, if you’re like me you’ll get to the clear sprue and wonder why your self-propelled gun comes with two large windows. It doesn’t, the sole purpose of this sprue is to provide a single headlight lens, the other four lenses and the two large windows go into the spares box.
The gun is a very simple arrangement with the barrel moulded as two halves with a separate muzzle brake, which is actually quite a nice looking part, though the RB Models aluminium barrel and brass muzzle brake will really make this kit go up a notch. There is no internal breech mechanism with this as the gun just mounts straight into the large mantlet which has some very nice surface texturing, as does the mantlet shield attached to tha gun. The DDhK 12.7mm Machine Gun is likewise very nicely done, just needing a few little tweaks like drilling out the barrel and thinning down the grips to bring it out a bit better.
The figures included with this kit are partial figures designed to be positioned in the open hatches with one being cut off at the knee and the other at the waist. Both are well moulded with well defined, individual expressions, though to me both have expressions that make them look like they have just been goosed.
The decals and painting guide give you the options for four vehicles, though it would probably be more accurate to say one vehicle with four number options. These are – Unknown Unit, Konigsberg, April 1945 : Unknown Unit, Berlin, May 1945 : Another Unknown Unit, Berlin, May 1945 : Unknown Unit, Poland, January 1945.
This kit makes up into a very nice model straight from the box and for the AMS sufferers it can be enhanced even further with some modelling TLC, an AM gun barrel, and a good photo-etch set. Do that and it has the potential to become a brilliant model. But whatever your style of building this is a very nice kit
Click on thumbnails to enlarge images.
