Overview

Zimmerit coating was applied by the Germany army during WWII from 1943 on tanks as a way to defeat infantry personnel from being able to attach magnetic mines. Zimmerit was developed by the German company Zimmer AG. It was made up of polyvinyl acetate, sawdust, barium sulphate, ochre pigment, and zinc sulphide. Zimmerit was applied during production prior to the painting process since it did not adhere well to painted surfaces. The coating also featured ridge patterns to reduce the surface area that a magnet could attach to. Zimmerit was applied to Elefants when they were modified at the factory. Simulating Zimmerit on military models using putty requires advanced skills and is time-consuming.

Package

Tamiya is offering this set of Zimmerit coating sheet for their new 1/35 scale Elefant tank kit #35325. Inside is a sheet of zimmerit stickers. You have two different zimmerit coating options to choose from. Also provided is an instruction sheet on how to apply and the location to apply them.

Application

Simply choose which option you want to use and cut out with scissors. You will also need a sharp hobby knife to cut out for bolts and other raised items where the zimmerit is applied. I used a dental tool to smooth down the stickers to make sure they adhered well to the surface of the model. I found that the stickers did not lie down as well as I’d hoped when bending around corners. The thickness of the zimmerit sheet makes the stickers want to pop back upright. I tried Tamiya extra thin glue to keep them in place, but this did not work; had to use CA glue to help keep them down. I used Tamiya grey primer and paints to paint over the zimmerit on the model. The zimmerit sheets took paint well with no chipping or peeling, but because the depth of the surface was minimum on the individual pieces, the paint seemed to fill in the zimmerit, leaving a less defined look.

Conclusion

The Tamiya zimmerit decal sheets do offer a quick and easy way to replicate zimmerit on a model. This is about the only pro to this product. I feel the cons outweigh the pros here. The sheets are thick and pop up when bending around corners, and over time tend to pop up on the flat surfaces as well. They do take paint well, but the poor surface depth makes the paint pool into the individual zimmerit channels and produces a smooth look. This being said, I cannot recommend this product. There are many other products on the market that reproduce zimmerit in much better quality, not counting the tried and true, old reliable method of making zimmerit from scratch. I would add that I love the simple stick-on application of this product and hope that Tamiya will improve what I perceive to be their shortcomings in the future.

I would like to thank Tamiya USA and IPMS for the opportunity to review this product.