Kit No. CB35028
This version of the Bofors from Bronco was only released last year so there are high expectations for how this will stack up against the encumbant Italeri kit, even though they do represent slightly different models of the Bofors, with the Italeri being the U.S. M1 version on an M2 chassis and the Bronco one being the British/Commonwealth version with a different chassis.
This kit comes in a large tray and lid style box on six dark yellow sprues, two of which are the same. There is also four injection moulded tyres, a small photo etched fret, a small grey sprue holding wingnuts, a small spring, a sheet of decals, and the instructions. This is called a 3-in-1 kit as you get a few options in how it can be built, as in it can be built in either the deployed or transit mode, and you also get the choice of doing it as the electrically controlled British version or the manually controlled Canadian version.
You also get the choice of the traditional spider web style double ring sights or the British Stiffkey sight, as well as a few other optional choices, so decide which way you want to build this before you start and follow the instructions as you go because there are places where you will need to do things differently for each version.
The mould quality is excellent with almost completely clean parts and almost non existant mould seams, very sharp detail and some particularly fine and delicate detailing. I did say almost, as you will still need to remove the mould seams even though they are very faint. For what is essentially a simple piece of equipment and, not a huge kit when complete, there is definitely plenty of parts to this one.
The gun is beautifully made with some very nice detail, including the internal feed rollers and lovely photo etched ready round racks which have a moulded jig included to get the shape spot on. The barrel is moulded as one piece and includes a hollowed out flash hider. This is where the included spring is used as it is the recuperator spring for the barrel and is intended to allow the barrel to be able to move in and out like the real one. There are two optional travel covers with photo-etched handles included for putting over the feed guides in the transport mode.
The gun base is also beautifully done, with the pedals and linkages in particular looking quite the part. If you go with the electrically operated version there is a very nice motor and drive shaft included, and both the electic and manual versions get a very nicely done hand crank. The shields are doubled skinned and bevelled at the edges to give them the appearance of a more to scale thickness and once assembled they do look very good.
The gun sight can be made as either the standard type with a smaller “spiderweb” sight behind a bigger “spiderweb” sight on each side, or as the Stiffkey sight which is a lot more involved and requires a bit of skill and patience to get together just right. Both versions use photo-etched parts for the sight rings together with the tiny injection moulded wing nuts which are included.
The carriage again has a few options depending on the version and mode chosen so attention to the instructions is needed. The detailing is excellent and unlike the Italeri kit this one includes full underside detail. The wheels are made up of four pieces with the fifth piece being the one piece moulded tyre. These tyres have dirrectional tread so you need to take care in putting them on so they are all facing the correct way. Again there are a lot of small and delicate parts to work with including some photo-etched parts. You can make a lot of the parts on this movable if you really want, including the anchoring pegs that can be fitted into their tiny PE clips if you do this in the travel mode.
Also included are two ammo boxes, a spare barrel box, a total of nine ammo clips, eighteen individual rounds in packing tubes, and a spare barrel. The four rounds in each ammo clip are very nicely done as are the stamped metal ammo boxes which are very thinly moulded and have good internal detail, designed to match the external stamping detail if you choose to model them open. The eighteen individual rounds in packing tubes will actually fit into these boxes if you so desire. The wooden spare barrel box likewise has good detail both inside and out and the spare barrel fits into it nicely. The spare barrel unlike the barrel used on the gun has the recuperator spring moulded to it.
The decals that are included are for three unknown units, all painted in British No. 15 Olive Drab. There are also decals provided for the ammo cans though there are none for the spare barrel box or the individual rounds stowage tubes.
This is a very nice kit and unless you specifically want to build a U.S. version I’d go for this one over the Italeri kit every time. I’ve probably overused the words “very nice” in this review but there’s no getting away from the fact that this is an extremely nice kit. There are a lot of fiddly bits so it’s probably not one for the novice, but the extra detailing that Bronco have included is well worth the effort for what you get at the end.
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