The Handley-Page Halifax was one of Britain’s best 4-engined bombers but, like the Hurricane to the Spitfire, was overshadowed by the Avro Lancaster as a media darling. It didn’t help that no original Halifax airframes existed in the world, outside of a sorry example pulled from a Norwegian fjord in the early 70’s and displayed in an un-restored state at the RAF Museum in London – a pitiful state of affairs.

Back in the mid 1970’s, the 1/48^th armor scene was dominated by Bandai Corp., who released a series of WW2 Allied and German military vehicle kits, together with a number of figure and accessory sets. Included among these kits was a late war German Jagdtiger, a true monster of a “tank”. Despite their “state of the art” nature at the time of release, the Bandai range is now showing its age. Also, Bandai stopped manufacturing these military vehicle kits in the mid-1970’s!

To remedy the “need” for a Bandai replacement, Tamiya has come to the modeler’s rescue with a lovely rendition of the Jagdtiger in their own 1/48 Military Vehicle range. As per usual with Tamiya’s German military vehicle kits, the model is produced in a tan plastic, which has been the norm over the past year or so in this range, Tamiya has chosen to move away from the relatively poorly detailed metal lower hull unit, and have moved to much better detailed injection plastic lower hull parts.

They say that there are only two things in life that are certain, death and taxes. I’d like to add a third: the precision fit of a Tamiya kit. Not that this model is perfect, but it sure was a pleasure to build. After building several other brands, I forgot just how nice a Tamiya kit goes together.

When the box is opened, one is greeted by 264 parts, 213 in green styrene, 17 in gray (for the figures), 8 in clear, 10 large and 8 small poly caps, 7 photo etched metal parts, and one length of steel chain. The parts are beautifully molded with no sink marks, excepting for the usual molding seams and punch-out marks. These are mostly unseen once assembled.

In steps 1-3, the lower inner hull is built. Details are crisp with no fit issues whatsoever. I was a little concerned at first, since the usual tub is not there. But I was amazed by how well it all went together. It was spot-on and I needed no filler anywhere!