Summary

Newly offered in injection-molded plastic by Bronco Models out of China, is a wide-tracked sWS Utility Halftrack sporting a 60cm infrared searchlight and accompanying night-vision IR equipment.

This "new" kit is actually a reissue of the high-quality Great Wall (Lion Roar) kit from a few years back. Aside from the box art and the color of the plastic, the main difference between the two kits is that Bronco includes a complete engine assembly. At some point GW introduced these parts as an aftermarket set you had to purchase separately for their sWS kits.

This kit is a model of a proposed vehicle to build a Panther Reconnaissance tank mounting a turret under consideration for the 8 wheeled PanzerSpahwagen using the 5cm KwK 39 gun. A project was started in January 1942 by Krupp & Rheinmetall with a projected delivery of Oct/Nov 1942. The project was not pursued and the painting schemes are pure conjecture.

This kit has approximately 288 styrene parts, DS tracks, no photo etched parts, and much worse set of instructions, they need to be reviewed very carefully before gluing any parts together.

This latest addition to the Ampersand Group's Visual History Series contains a wealth of information not only for the historical buff but, to the serious modeler whose dedication for detail will provide immense resource. David Doyle and Ampersand Group, Inc. have provided the serious modeler a welcomed addition to his library.

At first glance one sees a clear, detailed, color cover page depicting the crew of a M48A3 at Fire Base Bastogne in Viet Nam on 16 April 1968. The back cover shows an image of a damaged M48A3 at the 218th Collection, Classification, and Salvage Company at Long Binh 14 June 1967. The book is broken down into various sections including;

The Introduction consisting of the first 13 pages giving a brief history of the M48 Patton series of medium tanks from the inception and development, to upgrades and modifications.

The M4 series of tanks, popularly known as the Sherman tank, was the most important U.S. medium tank of the Second World War. It fought on every front, from the steamy jungles of the Pacific campaigns, to the dusty baking hot desert environs of North Africa, to the freezing snowy conditions of the Russian front winters. The culmination of the design, at least during WW2, was the M4A3E8 variant, known by the troops as the “Easy 8”. This variant first saw combat in Western Europe in December 1944.

This is a multimedia kit comprised of 470+ styrene parts on 24 sprues, DS tracks, one photo etched fret, decals and the set of instructions that need to be reviewed very carefully before gluing any parts together. The DS tracks were packed well enough to not be misshaped with the guide horns flattened as it has been noted in the past.

Most Dragon models today are a collection of old sprues and new sprues added to create a new kit variant. In this case, Dragon has done so and you will have some sprues with the same letter but are called out by the color and sprue letters in upper and lower case.

There are not many options for you to choose between and none require you to do so before you start. You can pick as you go along.