During the latter part of World War 2, as it lost its iron grip on the skies, Germany began to rely more and more on antiaircraft guns and weapons as its first line of defense against marauding Allied aircraft. What this meant in practical terms is that they had to range far and wide to find suitable vehicles to create mobile mounts for all sorts of weaponry, putting them on virtually anything that could move and handle the weight. Of course, eventually this expedient rigging became unsustainable, but not without cost to the allies.

ICM has provided a good example of this, with a 20mm Flak 38 gun mounted on the flat bed of a Maultier half-track cargo truck. Of note here – the Maultier half-track version of this truck, although considerably more mobile than its four-wheeled variant, suffered some loss of carrying capacity, so that although the four-wheeled version could carry the formidable four-barreled version of this weapon, the half-track version could only cope with the single-barrel version.

Although ICM also sells the Flak 38 and crew as a separate item, this kit combines it with their very good Maultier half-track complete with suitable modifications. As with the original half-track kit, this kit features a highly detailed chassis and engine, as well as two completely distinct cab variants. As I envisioned this as a defensive weapon sited somewhere around the edge of one of the final harried fighter fields, I elected to use the latter, boxy cabin as more appropriate for that stage of the war.

Assembly begins with the chassis, and you’ll want to take your time here as misalignment will throw the whole assembly off. The rear half-track elements can and should be assembled separately, as this will permit you to carefully align all the road wheels and add the link-and-length treads. A serious word of caution here, though – I found the single track pieces to be EXTREMELY fragile, and at first as I kept losing them to damage, I believed that there’d be plenty left, but I was wrong. I ran out of intact links about three links short, and had to carefully reassemble links from the debris to complete the assembly. The good news is that MB models makes a very affordable (and more durable) single-link set for this, and although slightly different in configuration, it fits the ICM kit well.

The engine is assembled next, and although I didn’t intend to display this on my piece, I put it together to see how it fits, which it certainly did. A little wiring from thin solder would finish off this unit very nicely.

Next was the cab, which as I stated before, is offered in two distinct versions. The late version fits together well enough that I could leave the roof off for detail painting and window insertion at a later stage.

The bed is offered in three distinct versions, mostly having to do with folding sides. As this was a late war variant, I assumed that any such frills would have been dispensed with and assembled it in its simplest configuration. A well-detailed mounting assembly fits on the flatbed to accommodate the Flak 38, along with a couple of ammunition boxes.

The Flak 38 also comes with two variants – armored and unarmored. I chose the armored version as I figured the crew could use all the protection they could get. Another note here – you might want to leave the elevating and traversing wheels off until you assemble the gunner figure, just to make sure everything goes together without difficulty.

Last are the figures themselves. Alas, as anyone who has read my previous reviews knows, I am a sucker for ICM figures, having fallen in love with them when they first started producing their wonderful World War One line by the sculptor Gagarin.

I must unhappily state that these figures do not live up to their reputation. The gun crew is depicted in essentially clinched poses, and the sculpting is by far the poorest I’ve ever encountered from ICM, with vague detail in parts and strictly generic faces. To be honest, I didn’t give them as much attention in painting as I usually do, as I intend to replace them with aftermarket figures as soon as possible. In a word, they are functional but nothing beyond that.

Even with these figures, the final model with gun and crew does make for a striking assembly. This is still certainly a worthy addition to any late-war armor collection if one takes into account the iffy single track links and substandard figures. With those caveats in mind, I can certainly recommend this kit to any modeler who enjoys modeling Germany’s desperate innovations at the end of a very nasty war.

My thanks to ICM for furnishing this kit and to IPMS/USA for a chance to examine and build it for my own collection. Happy modeling, all!