Up until about a year ago if you wanted a 1/35 scale model kit of the 2cm Flakvierling 38 your only choice was the old Tamiya kit which, whilst it could be tarted up quite nicely with a bit of work, didn’t offer the OOB builder much in the way of finess. Then in 2009 we had the Sd.Kfz.7 wars between Trumpter and Dragon which saw two new Flakvierlings available ( albeit at the time only on the Sd.Kfz.7 chassis ). So since then we have seen not only the Trumpeter and Dragon Flakvierlings as stand-alone kits ( that was after all a no brainer ) but also Bronco, AFV Club, and Lion Roar/GreatWall Hobby putting forth their own versions. This version of it is AFV Club’s “Special Edition” version which includes four metal barrels.
The kit comes in a medium sized lightweight open-ended box which contains four dark yellow sprues ( one large, one medium and two matching smaller ones ) as well as the four metal barrles, a medium sized photo-etched fret, a small sheet of decals and the instructions in a 12 page booklet form.
The mouldings are clean and the detail is sharp, knockout marks are all on areas that won’t be seen and there are no prominent mould seams, just the usual very fine ones that seem to be inevitable on standard injection moulded plastic. In a lot of cases you have to look hard to find them. There are some small, delicate parts so good quality side cutters or a sharp blade is in order but other than that assembly is easy and the instructions are very good, being clear, thorough and easy to follow.
The gun frame and base is very nicely made with a lot of very delicate pieces such as the pedals, wingnuts and adjustment dials. There are a lot of parts that go into this section and it includes some very nice touches such as the photo-etched front cover which can be left to open and close if desired. One very nice touch is the inclusion of photo-etch semi-circular strips with the elevation markings on them for the bottom edge of each gun mount. There are the correct eight ammo bins per side with the seperating panels provided in photo-etch to get the correct thiness needed. The gun receivers are nicely detailed with the only complaint being a really picky one, that being that with the size of the mag well it would have been a nice touch to have the internal bolt detail included so that if the builder opts to leave a mag or two out of the gun the internal detail can be seen.
The shields are moulded about as thin as you can get in plastic and for once I would think that the effort involved in replacing them with photo etched versions just wouldn’t be worth it as these are actually very nicely done with excellent detail. Even the gunner’s smaller shield is very finely reproduced in very thin plastic. The shields can also be folded for the tranport mode, though the locking catches are moulded in place on the shield so you would need to modify these slightly to depict them in the transport mode.
The sights are very nicely done, though it is a little dissappointing that they are the early war open style Schwebekreisvisier 30/38 sights rather than the later Flakvisier40 electrical sight which would have been much more common in the later stages of the war. Not that there is anything wrong with the 30/38 and you could always chuck on the Griffon Flakvisier 40 sight but it would have been nice to have the option.
The platform after all that is a relatively simple and straight forward assembly having some very nice details including underneath. The levelling feet are very nicely reproduced with again just that small picky niggle at not having the jack screws provided if you opt to have the feet in any position other than wound right up.
The metal barrels are very nice, and unusually for AM brass barrels come ready to go with the flash hiders in place. For the very picky they still lack the textured band used to provide grip for barrel changing that is found on some other AM brass 2cm Flak 30/38 barrels, but other than that they are very well done and are streets ahead of the plastic barrels that the kit still comes with for those who don’t like to work with metal ones. The flash-hiders on the plastic versions are nicely produced but a comparrison to the metal versions shows instantly why the metal barrels are prefered by most AMS sufferers, because as nice as they are they still lack the delicate holes and the true thinness of the flash hider itself.
The magazines are one of the small let downs on this kit. You get twenty styrene 20rd mags which is sufficient to put four in the gun and eight into each side storage bin. But sadly they lack really good detail. There is no round depicted in the open end, which itself isn’t rounded enough to portray the feedlips accurately, and no base detail. It appears that AFV Clubs intention is that the mags be stowed base up although even if they were all shown stowed in the side bins there is the lack of base detail to contend with.
Having not yet gotten my hands on one of the Bronco or Lion Roar examples of the Flakvierling it’s still early days as to which is the best example of the various brands available. While all the new offerings are streets ahead of the old Tamiya kit this one, like the Dragon and Trumpeter examples, is a very nice kit that is let down by a few small details, details which prevent it from being the standout kit that makes you say “this is the one to get”. The metal barrels are certainly a nice touch and, though only available in the “limited edition” version, may be enough to sway the vote towards this kit if I had to pick only one flakvierling to get. Certainly it has enough going for it for the OOB builder, and for the rest of us there’s always AM PE sets to deal with the mags and the few other small niggles.
click images to enlarge
