The Kit

This is the Bronco Models kit of the Panzerkamfwagen MK IV, 744(E) (A13).

This kit represents a Cruiser Mk IV A13 captured from the British Army during the Battle for France in 1940. The Germans used the vehicles as gun tanks to support their flame tanks for the invasion of the Soviet Union. The box contains the following parts.

• 25 light grey sprues, including six for track.
• 1 sprue with clear parts.
• 2 P/E frets.
• 1 small decal sheet.
• 1 rope cable.
• 16 page instruction manual with warning page and color table, parts map, 21 construction steps with several exploded views, and full-color four view drawing for markings.

Bottom Line, Up Front

This kit is over-engineered and very 'fiddly", but the detail is outstanding and with patience will build into a nice little replica of the real thing!

“1/2500 Scale – the final frontier. This is the kit review of the Starships “Enterprise.” Their 5-day mission: Amuse a 4-1/2 year-old little modeling nut, give his dad a chance to check out some new models of some old friends, and to boldly go where few built kits have gone before …(Wal-Mart, the public library, Lowes, Max & Erma’s, McDonalds, …anywhere little hands can carry them).”

Background

It’s hard for some of us to believe it’s been nearly a half-century since Star Trek’s debut in 1964. Over the decades, the Starship U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701, has arguably become the most recognizable, esteemed, and influential vessel in intergalactic travel -- so influential that even the first NASA Space Shuttle bore her name as the result of a massive write-in campaign from Star Trek fans in the mid-1970’s.

MiniArt definitely knows how to be creative with their sprues. This kit is nothing more than eight of their F sprues used to make a metal bridge with handrails. Sprue F is the sprue that was used in their “metal Stair”. This sprue is used to create the platform part of the stair kit.

This was a simple build. Cut some parts, do a little sanding and the bridge is done. The handrails are a different issue. They require lots of sanding or at least scraping. That is what I did to remove the large visible seam lines on the parts. When finished, the “bridge measures in at 5 7/8 long by 2 7/8 wide. Without the handrails attached you could get away with putting a number of vehicles on the bridge (as seen in the photos) If you end up attaching the handrails, you will be limited to what you can actually put onto the bridge.

First Look

The 122 SpH 74 is a tracked, medium sized self-propelled gun in service with the modern Finnish army. A Soviet design, the SpH 74 is the Finnish designation for essentially the 2S1 Gvozdika that has been around since the early 70’s.

Skif’s new release is a reissue of their earlier 2S1 with the inclusion of new parts to allow the modeler to build the version currently in operation by Finland. As far as I can tell the new parts are mainly in photo etch, with the original plastic parts unchanged. In fact more than a few parts will go unused as they are 2S1 specific and not present in photos of the 74 I’ve been able to dig up.

Introduction

The IAR 80 series of fighters was developed by IAR Brasov, a Romanian company, and were intended to replace some of the outdated Polish fighters which equipped the Romanian Air Force before World War II. IAR, which had produced a series of low wing, single seat fighters dating back to 1930 as well as some of the PZL fighters under license, developed a ‘home grown design”, the IAR-80, which was originally powered by a Romanian derivative of the French Gnome Rhone 14K Mistral-Major radial engine rated at 900 hp. Later models used 1,025 hp K-14-1000A engines, and the IAR-80A and IAR-80B were fighter and fighter bomber developments with slight detail differences. The IAR-80C, which was built in small numbers, was the last production model, and featured two 20 mm. Ikaria cannons, tail bracing struts, and racks for external fuel tanks. Survivors of the war were used by the Romanian Air Force until the late forties, and some were converted to two seat trainers.