The Kit

This slick new set of Hungarian fuel drums and Jerry cans comes in a small, side-opening box with instructions and painting suggestions on the back. Three identical sprues of soft yellow-tan plastic and three sheets of photo etch make up the content. Expecting a run-of-the-mill modeling experience, I was more than pleasantly surprised by the engineering and design of everything – these were made with the modeler in mind.

Oil Drums

There are enough parts to assemble six oil drums. The top and bottom of each eight-part drum is stamped with either ‘HONV’, ‘LUH’, ‘MKR’, serial numbers, and such. What makes the design great is that the two rather thick banding rings are fit into grooves cut into the side of the drum half. This allows the modeler to assemble the drum, fill and sand away the panel lines, and then add the banding rings. In the hands of other manufacturers, this might have been a real sanding chore.

FineScale Modeler and Kalmbach are well known for their excellent collection of publications covering a wide variety of hobby-related subjects. This publication continues that tradition of excellence.

Modeling airliners requires a set of modeling skills that, while not unique to airliners, are critical to the completion of the project at a high level of quality. Thus, Scale Modeler’s How-to-Guide spotlights those skills and provides the modeler with suggestions on mastery of those skills.

Organized into 7 chapters, this publication covers:

Sturmgeschutz, abbreviated StuG, was the weapon of the Strumartillerie, the branch of the German Artillery tasked with close fire support of infantry. StuGs were very successful in their intended support role and destroyed, among others, many bunkers, pillboxes, and other defenses. The StuG is not generally considered to be a true tank because it lacks a turret. The gun was mounted directly in a casemate-style fashion, with as low a profile as was possible to reduce vehicle height, and had a limited lateral traverse. Omitting the turret made production simpler and less costly, enabling greater numbers to be built. By late 1943, improved Allied tanks and tank destroyers with improved guns, rotating turrets, and superior mobility forced the StuG into being primarily an ambush weapon. From December of 1943 to March of 1945, 1139 were produced by Krupp at Magdeburg. StuG IV (Sd.Kfz.167) was armed with a 75mm StuK 40L/48 gun mounted in a cast version of “saukopf” mantlet.