Frankfurt, Germany-based Das Werk has released another trailer option for their Faun L900 series truck – this time a 5-ton, four-wheeled ‘unit trailer’ or Einheitsanhänger. As with previous releases, Das Werk continues to stick to its roots of providing interesting and imminently buildable kits for a good price.
Using the hull from a Sho’t (itself a modified Centurion), the Puma CEV is a heavily armored combat engineering vehicle and armored personnel carrier used by the IDF since the 1990´s. With a top speed of 45 km/h, the Puma can carry a crew of up to eight people. It has a variety of uses including mine clearing equipment (including the Carpet system) and bridging capabilities. It is armed with three 7.62mm FN MAG machine guns, smoke grenade launchers, and a 60mm mortar.
Inside the durable cardboard box are seventeen olive green sprues, four brown sprues with individual track links, an upper and lower hull, two clear sprues, 24 vinyl tires, a PE fret, and a nicely detailed decal sheet. The kit only features one scheme that uses only two of the decals, so good references are a must to get the most out of the kit.
This is a re-boxing of the very good Dragon kit with addition parts and new decals for five different markings. Included in the kit is a very nice instruction manual by Das Werk. The kit can be built in to one of two different versions – the 10.5cm StuH42 or the 7.5cm StuG III Ausf.G.
The kit contains
The kit is includes a lot of unrequired parts as these are for the other StuG versions that Dragon does. The instruction booklet is great and very detailed to assist in the build. There were a couple of minor errors that I list below that I found during the build.
The Panther is an iconic German World War II tank and this book is a very detailed manual of how to model it using the various Takom kits currently on the market.
The chapters are written by some of the best modelers in the world and they guide you through the process of building, painting and weathering the Takom kits. The book gives comprehensive cover of all the stages of construction and finishing.
The book also has a short but concise history of the Panther which includes some awesome photos, and a great chapter three which is a photo gallery of some museum Panthers.
Frankfurt, Germany-based Das Werk has been busy in the ‘cool and unusual’ department as of late, providing model kits not usually covered by other manufacturers. I was initially attracted to their work by their high-quality boxing and the beautiful artwork that adorned their kits. Not satisfied with the run-of-the-mill subjects, DW continues to stick to its roots of providing interesting and imminently buildable kits for a good price. Their stunning Faun-based truck and trailer offering is the first I’ve seen in injection-molded plastic, and this review specifically covers the lowboy Sonderanhänger (‘special trailer’) 10-ton Sd.Ah.115. The Sd.Ah.115 was a light tank transporter tasked with transporting light tanks and other vehicles such as armored cars. The total weight of the trailer itself was just over 11,000lbs, and it sits about 30 feet long.
The Royal Italian Army began to deploy self-propelled artillery guns at the end of the 1930s. Their purpose was to provide support for tanks and infantry units. The “Semovente” 75 /18 was developed on the back of the “M” series medium tank hull, and it soon became the most feared Italian armored vehicle. The 75mm howitzer was a highly effective anti-tank weapon and was capable of destroying the most heavily armored British and American tanks. The “Semovente” was also valued for its low profile, which made it difficult to locate.
This set consists of one photoetch fret with parts to detail and/or replace kit parts on Emhar’s 1/72 British Mark IV Male tank. Mainly they are replacement parts for the kit’s un-ditching beam rails, some detail parts for that beam, replacement sponson doors, pistol port covers and parts to enable the modeler to open up the driver’s and commander’s vision ports. There’s also a piece to replace the roof top storage bin.
“After the Second World War many American military vehicles become surplus stock and soon found their way into the hands of farmers and land owners across Great Britain. The subsequent heavy use and the real possibility of difficulties obtaining spares led Maurice Wilks, the Rover Car Company Chief Engineer, to design and build a replacement.”
Several years ago, I had the pleasure of spending a week in Prague. Relatively untouched by the Second World War, I had a delightful time. While I had a general knowledge of what happened in 1968, I was not thinking about the sacrifices that the inhabitants of the city made. This volume fills that gap. Hellion Publishing has created a host of series that examine conflicts around the world, including Europe. This particular volume provides an overview of the Soviet and Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968. As with other Hellion offerings, it follows a standard design and format. The text provides context and details of the intervention. Given what happened in 1968, I have never seen many of these photographs, so anyone with an interest in Soviet vehicles and equipment, it is a treasure trove of information. They also include a small selection of color photographs, profiles of equipment that took part in the intervention, and a map.
David Grummitt is an accomplished historian, author, and scale model builder. With his 2020 work, Stryker Interim Combat Vehicle: The Stryker and LAV III in US and Canadian Service, 1999-2020, he has given the modeling community a comprehensive reference for this vehicle. More than a simple photographic history, this book is tailored to the needs of an armor modeler as it provides many photographs, drawings, kit reviews, and variant details.
