Military Model Scene

This year has been a difficult one for Revell, having been sold off once more.  However, it hasn't stopped them and among a couple of new small scale armour kits comes this late variant of the Sdkfz 7 half-track.  They released the artillery tractor a few years ago now, and we still see those parts included in the box.  The chassis and the front end are common but what we get here for this Late Production version is a wooden GS body behind the cab and with the option to build it with the cab and body open, or with a canvas tilt over the body and/or the driver's cab.  My preference was instantly the one with the tilt fitted over cab and load area.  Very nicely moulded with detail on the wooden planked load body and the canvas of the tilt.

The track units and chassis build very nicely and they are well detailed.  The tracks are moulded delicately in single pieces.  The sprue has three full lengths, so one spare if you mess anything up or otherwise ready to go into your spares box.  Fit of parts is good all round, but I am going to own up to an error which I found myself needing to sort out.  We learn from our mistakes and even after some 50+ years of  modelling I still make mistakes and learn from them.  Having built the earlier artillery tractor with no issues, perhaps I was a little too complacent.  My mistake was to fit the base of the cab, the driver's position, to the chassis and then add the bonnet and body side panels.  I found I hadn't got the base part in quite the right place so the bonnet parts then didn't fit in the right places.  The solution had to be to separate all the parts, sand down the joining edges and start again.  It took a bit of effort to get the cab base off the chassis without causing damage, as I had let the glue dry solid.  Fortunately I was able to manage it.  The cab was then assembled with the bonnet and radiator parts, and that assembly fitted back on to the chassis.  This time everything fitted OK and the situation was salvaged.  The rear body and tilt were also assembled separately and this unit fitted perfectly with the cab and chassis.

A late war vehicle so colours have to involve dunkelgelb and your choice of appropriate camouflage colouring.

The kit provides for two options in terms of colours and marking -

a) Artillerie-Regiment 21, 21 Luftwaffen-Felddivision, within Heeresgruppe Kurland, during the winter of 1945.  This has a palin colour of dunkelgelb along with the canvas tilt.

b) Panzer-Artillerie Regiment 155, within the 21 Panzerdivision during the Ardennes offensive in the winter of 1944.  This carries an overall winter white colourscheme, and also with the canvas tilt.

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Another very neat small scale armour kit from Revell. 

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Robin