Tristar Models
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This vehicle, the Flakpanzer I Ausf. A, was designed in response to a call for a replacement for the inadequate Sd.Kfz. 10/4. Based upon phased-out Panzer I Ausf. A chassis a 20mm Flak 38 AA gun was mounted on a cut-down superstructure. Apparently only 24 of these odd vehicles where thus constructed and assigned to the 614th Flak Abt... this is according to the introduction provided in the Tristar instruction sheet. Reference on this vehicle is very difficult to locate. According to references I have found on the Internet this unit was sent to Southern Russia in 1941 and were ultimately destroyed around Stalingrad. Photographs of these tanks in service do show them in Russia and some are shown during the winter with white-wash camouflage applied. Recently Tristar have produced a very nice kit of this vehicle. It may seem like an odd subject, but it's German WW2... so sales are guaranteed! Tristar already had a nice kit of the Panzer I Ausf. A and 20mm Flak 38, so it seems a logical follow up. Included also is a great model of the Sd.Ah.51 trailer. The Kit Generally the moulding is pretty good, no flash, minimal mould lines, etc. The engineering of the sprues is fine but the carriers do tend to be a little big in relation to the smaller parts. Twisting the parts off the sprues is not a good idea, I use a set of flush-cutting shears. With care I can usually cut the part off so that no clean up is required. The photographs are:
A fairly decent interior is included, this is not the old resin upgrade that Tristar used to sell for their Panzer I Ausf. A kit, but a new one moulded in styrene. Starting with the hull bottom which features interior detail too, the transmission assembly of twelve parts, engine firewall, raised fighting compartment floor, batteries and a few other details are to be fixed in place. The transmission, if it's like other German transmissions, should have a few pipes added. Consulting references one should be able to add these from thin lead solder. The hull sides also feature internal details and along with the driver's seat and steering levers complete the interior. The driver's seat back could do with some improvement by cutting off the horizontal brace and replacing it with round stock.. to give it a more 3D effect. A lot of the interior won't be visible after the model is assembled, one could leave the transmission cover and the deck hatches (parts G4) open however. The "superstructure", for lack of a better word, consists of a separate glacis with a separate transmission hatch. I would thin this down a bit from the inside if I where to leave the hatch open as it scales out to 40mm thick! Also if left open it would be a nice touch to drill out the bolt holes around the hatch. A basic instrument panel is to be glued underneath. Archer make a nice set of German WW2 generic dial faces that would improve the panel a lot. A drop of clear acrylic "Future" is a good way of simulating the glass. The upper superstructure, more like a shield, is OK but could do with a set of weld beads, both external and internal added. Personally I would replace this whole part with 0.015" sheet stock for a true in-scale appearance. It wouldn't be that difficult as it's all flat pieces. No doubt there will be replacements available in photo-etched brass at some point... however I don't think PE will manage to simulate the weld beads too well. There are some good attempts at the vision blocks included. A couple of bolts could be added to beef them up. The "glass" parts are moulded in clear plastic too. The rear deck (F4) is one piece with the engine vent moulded solid. It would look great if this was replaced with a scratch-built item made from very thin strip stock, 0.005 possibly. As-is it still looks OK and the spare 20mm barrel box fits over this grill so most of it won't be seen too well. It would benefit from a dark wash however. There are no doubt photo-etched kits already available for the Panzer I base kit that address this area. The gun sits upon a deck over the fighting compartment, there are doors to the side of the "turret ring" that can be opened. I think ammunition boxes were stored in here. The kit includes four ammunition boxes. The armour panels protecting the sides of the vehicle are moulded absolutely thin and in-scale. I really like the way in which the fenders are engineered. They consist of the top part (F13 and F14) and a side flanges (C28 and C29) that are to be glued on. This makes it very easy to then them out. By placing the top part flat on a large sheet of sandpaper they can be rubbed down to scale thickness. The front and rear mud flaps are also separate. They are similarly engineered. Photographs indicate that the front flaps didn't seem to have a great affinity for the tank so should be left off... reference should be consulted for a specific vehicle. The mufflers that sit at the rear might be a little tricky to clean up as there is a mould line running horizontally along the detail. I have managed to clean similar parts up with the edge of a new piece of sandpaper before, it is slow tedious work however. Over the muffler sits a photo-etched screen which is supplied. Tools storage consists of an early light jack, which is well detailed and accurate, a jack-block that includes photo-etched details and the usual pioneer tools. Photo-etched handles are included for the clasps but not the actually clamps themselves. I'd prefer to clean the moulded on clamps and replace them with Aber's. I feel these give a better three dimensional appearance. The running gear is pretty good compared to photographs. The big springs (parts D11) are moulded solid, as is expected being styrene, so could be replaced with a new spring made from thin lead solder. Injection moulded individual track-links are included. They are as accurate as I can tell by comparing to photographs and are even "handed". So there sets of right and left-hand side tracks can be constructed. The difference is the track-pin which sticks out more on the outside side of the track. On my kit only two track sprues were included, there should be three. Hopefully this is a simple error are these tracks are excellent and it would be a shame to have to buy a set of Kasten tracks. These vehicles also seemed to have lengths of spare tracks stored horizontally across the glacis. Flak 38 I am absolutely amazed at how thinly moulded the gun shield parts are. They are actually "in-scale". I suspect Tristar have used a special kind of high pressure injection moulding that is more expensive yet yields incredible thinness. See photo. 13. I don't think that photo-etched parts would be better that these since "rounded" rivets are moulding in place... plus they don't have to be bent and soldered together. I'd like to see more kits feature thin parts like fenders, etc. moulded with this technology. Apparently the gun barrel is not correct, being too short and the housing too long. The error is 2mm or so. Keep in mind that there where two different 20mm barrels so this one could very well represent the shorter one. In any case the point is moot: I feel the barrel is too skinny and the mould line too difficult to remove without further reducing the barrel. Fortunately, Armourscale have, or are very near to releasing the ultimate 20mm Flak 38 barrel. Theirs features a turned flash suppressor... so no more of the next-to-impossible shaping of Aber's! There are a few areas on the gun left available for super-detailing. Most of this would be thinning out the kit parts. For example part A23 the foot trigger: the foot supports could be cut off, thinned out and glued back on. Other details will present themselves by studying references. An excellent reference would be the Tamiya booklet (Ref. 2). That said however, the gun is excellent built as-is. Sd.Ah.51 Trailer I was surprised to find an Sd.Ah.51 trailer included in the kit. This was used an ammunition store for the gun. Basically consisting of a large rectangular box set upon the unused gun carriage. The lid is separate so it can be built open, however there are some interior details that must be added to the underside of the lid and the small holding arms will have to be modified to the open position. There is a really good photograph around showing the lid of one of these trailers open. It is being towed by the Sd,Kfz. 10/4 half track. As far as details go... the trailer frame looks good, there are excellent photographs in the Tamiya booklet showing the frame close up. This is the same frame that the 20mm gun was towed on. Weld beads, very fine ones, could be added around the joints, see photograph 8 detail. These welds are evident in the Tamiya booklet (ref. 2). The fenders are really thick and could be thinned down, this could be a little tricky due to the shape, so a motor tool will help. The wheels are nicely detailed with a correct pattern. Other Goodies Included is also a complete Panzer I turret, in addition there are several other parts from the base Panzer I and Flak kits. In fact all of the parts for the Flak are included such as its base. The decals are by Cartograf and include numbers for each vehicle from the Flak Abt. 614 2nd and 3rd company. Conclusions This is a neat little kit and I highly recommend it. It's well moulded, accurate and has good detail. I haven't built it yet but will be giving it to someone to build soon, hopefully this review will be appended with construction notes. Tristar supplied this kit as a review sample. References Reference on this little vehicle is difficult to come by. There are a few photographs around the Internet. There will be a Panzer Tracts covering it in the future. There is ample reference on the three constituent parts of the kit, the Panzer I Ausf. A, Flak 38 and Sd.Ah.51 trailer. For the chassis the best are the Panzer Tracts volume "No 1-1 Panzerkamfwagon I Kleintraktor to Ausf. B" and Achtung Panzer no. 7 "Pz.Kpfw.I/Pz.Kpfw.II and variants". (Ref. 1) The 20mm gun is well covered in the old Tamiya News booklet "Photograph Album no. 4" (Ref. 2). On the web there is a site with a collection of wartime photographs of this vehicle here: http://www.geocities.com/madsin72/eflpz1a.html. |
User Contributed Notes |