This profile book starts with a short history of the Ferdinand from its inception through the general configuration of the vehicle. In addition, the book gives you the armament, thickness of the armor and the division of the interior of the vehicle, as well as when the vehicle entered service with the German Army. The last paragraph of the short intro talks about the operation of the vehicle during the Battle of Kurz. This is considered the biggest battle ever fought between AFV's. The story ends with the reasons why the vehicle was a failure. As an aside, I would not like to have been one of the crew members of this "baby" as the noise inside of the vehicle most have been quite high. I understand that the noise level inside was measure at 185 dB and that is enough to cause permanent damage to your ears.

German armor of WWII has had, to say the least, a lot written about with many, many models coming out to support the literature. Tamiya continues to release wonderful 1/48th scale kits of German armor and the latest is a Tiger I from Early Production for the Eastern front. Inside the box, you will find a new bottom hull from another kit and decals for 2 Eastern front Tiger’s:

• No. 233, 2nd Company, 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion
• No. 213, 2nd Company, 502nd Heavy Panzer Battalion

Looking into the box, the majority of parts are either road wheels or tracks. Tracks are straight runs with separate individual tracks to go round the front and back wheels. There are ~ 26 pieces per side for the tracks. I will say this up front, fit is super all the way around.

OKB Grigorov specializes in resin, photoetch and turned metal barrel conversions for armor. One of their latest releases is the wheels for the German Tiger (P), Ferdinand and Elefant (Early)

This aftermarket set includes parts in grey resin. As you can see from the pictures, the casting of the parts is pretty good, without any bubbles in the resin and small attachment points.

This set provides 12 double wheels (running wheels) and the pictures show the fantastic level of detail of the tracks, both inside and outside sides.

Only the running wheels are provided in the set. No sprocket wheels are provided in the set, although the Tracks set includes them (see review elsewhere in this website).

Overall, this set is well done and will require minimum cleaning of the parts for assembly.

Highly recommended, mainly for those modelers looking to super-detail their kits.

I would like to thank OKB Grigorov and IPMS/USA for the review sample.

The Panzerkampfwagen V (abbreviated PzKpfw V), also referred as the Sd.Kfz. 171, was better known as the Panther. TankCraft 34, Panther Medium Tank, German Army and Waffen-SS Normandy Campaign, Summer 1943, although the fifth book on the Panther in the TankCraft series, introduces the famed tank with its combat debut in Operation Citadel in July 1943. The Panther tank was developed to counter the Russian T-34 and KV series tanks encountered during the invasion of Russia in 1941.

The Table of Contents (see accompanying photo) lays out the book in a logical manner with a truncated introduction of the Panther, then its combat baptism of fire during the Battle of Kursk, Panther units, camouflage and markings, and in a trend in this series, the Model Showcase and Products (pp27-48) break up the book before delving back into technical details and modifications, unit tables of organization and an extensive bibliography.

ICM is one of many model companies based in the Ukraine that have been affected by the recent war with Russia. Based in Kyiv, the company has been active as of late in creating and releasing new products and defying the challenges they face. This kit is a rebox with new parts for the kit released back in 2021. Let’s take a look…

What’s Inside the Box

The kit comes as the standard ICM kit does—with a colorful box top that slides off of an enclosed brown cardboard box. Parts were packaged well and details were crisp with no flash to speak of.