The Panzerfaust ("armor fist" or "tank fist") was an inexpensive, single shot, recoilless German anti-tank weapon of World War II. It consisted of a small, disposable preloaded launch tube firing a high explosive anti-tank warhead, and was operated by a single soldier. The Panzerfaust was in service from 1942 until the end of the war.

Hauler, a small company out of Czechoslovakia, continues to add to its list of quality aftermarket and modeling supply products; this time with a package of Panzerfaust weapons complete with two cargo boxes in 1/35th scale.

The package contains a small PE sheet, a small sheet of decals, a sheet of instructions and a single baggie containing all the resin parts, including eight Panzerfausts. My sample arrived with one of the two delicate ‘rope’ handles broken off of each of the two boxes.

Thanks first to Aires/Quickboost for providing IPMS USA this review set and IPMS leadership for passing it my way!

OK, here we go. The Meng ME163B is a very nice kit; the addition of a bit of resin is applied in this case to the cockpit. I believe this set could also work in the 40-year old Hasegawa powered-egg… have not tried it yet.

The overall presentation is excellent. The tub itself is well detailed as is. Mounting straps for the “S” stoff tanks on either side of the pilot are there; the back bulkhead has rivet and seat mounting details. A yoke for the rudder pedals mounts in the forward tub, to which are attached massive foot pedals with standard boot harnesses. I recommend you remove about ¼” of the lower cheeks off the forward cockpit tub, because it will not fit in the model fuselage halves if you don’t. A simple fit check indicates that will work as a solution.

This is a multimedia kit comprised of 470+ styrene parts on 24 sprues, DS tracks, one photo-etched fret, decals and the set of instructions that need to be reviewed very carefully before gluing any parts together. The DS tracks are misshaped with the guide horns flattened, there is substantial flash on the side, and the locating holes to glue the ends together do not line up with the pins on the other end. I tried to salvage these by using the Hobby Trax forms to straighten the guide horns. Generally I was successful, but if your model is to be shown in a contest, I suggest that you replace the tracks with individual links (Magic Tracks or Fruil).

Most Dragon models today are a collection of old sprues with additional new sprues added to create a new variant. Dragon has done so with this kit, and you will have some sprues using the same letter but are called out on the instructions with a separate color (see sprues blue A & B).