The Panzer IV series of medium tanks was the only German tank to see continuous production throughout the Second World War. As battlefield conditions changed for the Germans during the war, so too did the Panzer IV: thicker armor, more powerful main guns, the introduction of spaced “schurzen” turret and hull armor plates. The modeler has been fairly well served over the years when it comes to Panzer IV kits in all the main scales. In 1/35th scale, Tamiya, Italeri, Dragon, Gunze Sangyo, Zvezda and Academy themselves have all done various versions of the Panzer IV in their catalogs. Academy, in fact, did a couple of Panzer IV Ausf H’s way back in 1984. The kit under review in this article has NOTHING in common with the 1984 releases. Not only is it from 100% brand new tooling compared to the 1984 versions, but it comes with zimmerit in the form of waterslide decals!

(No preamble this time; only building reports. )

The remaining item I tackled here was the seat itself. The Eduard set 32 920 included in the big Ed set has a very well-done P-51 seat, complete with the aft stiffener, and some other little details. It is pretty well self-explanatory how to fold it all into place. The seat requires some gap-filling superglue to properly assemble, as there is little surface on which to have the glue “Grab” the other parts, and hold together while under handling. Once these are complete, the armor plate is cemented into place.

IPMS/USA thanks the Eduard team once again for sending us this simple, excellent set for the new Eduard FW-190 series. And thanks to Phil and John for obtaining the sets for the team…

This set consists of perfectly cast resin parts for the back of the engine, guns, cowl bits, plus a few bits of PE including parts for the armored windscreen and cowl latches. MUCH easier than scratchbuilding!

This upper fuselage gun bay set is a simplified version of the advanced set with the engine abbreviated, i.e. just the gun bay parts and engine mount war part of the set, not the whole engine; the accessory section the intake distributor tube are also provided Since I had built the entire “bigger” set earlier, I knew what to expect.

The gun bay was simpler, particularly with more lighting and my magnifier to hand. The next one of these will be perfect, I swear…