“Any Army Any Era!”……This is the Battle Cry for Steve Munsell of ValueGear. A Daytime Dad and nighttime casting machine. After reviewing the Wooden Crates 3 set and knowing I still had two more reviews to accomplish I figured I would send Steve an email and get some personal knowledge and thoughts. He considers himself a so-so modeler and started ValueGear simply because he got tired of seeing the same pieces used over and over again by the mainstream cottage industries in their stowage set. I also learned that he is no longer in Ireland but right here in Sunny Arizona. Hopefully he will pick up so more U.S. Distributors for his fine products.

The AFV

The PanzerKampfWagen IV Ausf H was designed to be an improved version of earlier PZKw IVs. The 75mm KWK/40 L48 main gun was supposed to be the same 50mm gun used in the IV Ausf F, but the shock of discovering how hard it was to deal with the Russian T-34s and KV-1s necessitated the upgrade to a 75mm gun. The particular version in this kit has the standoff armor (Schűrzen = aprons). The standoff armor is to protect the hull from shaped-charge weapons like the bazooka or Panzerfaust. The boxart shows extra tracks carried on the front glacis plate, but these are not included in the kit.

Plus Model out of the Czech Republic makes great diorama accessories and kits. I state that upfront as more people need to hear about these great items. This kit is a European style hay wagon in 1/35 scale. the kit is entirely resin with 25 gray resin parts and a small piece of wire. The parts molding is excellent with wood grain molded in subtly to the parts. As with any kit, each part will need cut from its pour block and cleaned. The parts are well done but it pays to take care here. I used a fine razor saw and cut the parts loose and scraped/sanded away the molding lines. Once done, I washed the parts in dish soap and warm water in case there was mold release and the parts were ready for assembly.