Dragon has followed their first kit of the 7.5cm PaK 40 Anti-Tank gun (kit #6249) with this new kit of the 7.5cm PaK 40 Late Type w/Fallschirmjäger Anzio 1944 which is basically the first kit with some updated and some new parts as well as an alternate set of figures.
The kit consists of 155 parts in light grey plastic with another 143 for the figures and four rubber tyres, metal barrel and ammo rounds plus a small etched fret as well as decal sheet and of course the instructions.
The quality of the moulding is very good with many small and delicate parts while the larger parts have nice surface details and a minimum of pin marks. These are kept to a minimum by the use of many plastic ‘nodes’ on the parts to aid in the knockout process and while this requires a little more cleanup, it’s better than filling pin marks.
Care is needed when removing the smaller parts from the sprues but there shouldn’t be any problems except for one area where the gun shields attach to the sprues. The attachment points are quite large and being on the bottom only can result in stress damage before removing the parts as the parts easily “flex” on the sprues during transit and you may need to repair any minor damage.
There are a number of the sub assemblies that are very detailed with the lower carriage having no less that 27 parts for the suspension and carriage with the axles able to be positioned in three positions, neutral, raised or lowered depending on the final setting for the gun.
The lower gun shield is in two parts and can be fitted in firing or travelling position as you wish and there is a choice of the three types of wheels seen on PaK 40s during the war with the early stamped steel and two new types of steel spoked wheels that better represent the types seen and again have separate rubber tyres with a choice of ‘clean’ or ‘damaged’ tyres for a bit of variety although there is no “Continental” embossing on the sidewalls.
The two trailing arms attached to the rear of the lower carriage have separate rear spades, grab handles and other fittings and the incorrect trails from the first PaK 40 kit have been corrected with these arms now the correct length although the small but characteristic weld seams down the trails is still not present.
Moving on to the gun barrel, you get as mentioned the choice of aluminium or plastic barrel depending on your preference and a choice of the three different style of muzzle brake seen on the PaK 40s from early to late war guns. These are in one piece using slid mould technology for the main muzzle brake and have separate end fillets with internal flanges either from plastic or etched metal again depending on your preference. The rear breech block is very detailed with the breech made up of four main parts with a separate movable breech block of three parts plus breech opening handle, side piston and lower support for a very detailed barrel assembly.
The gun cradle is in the usual two halves for this type of gun and these parts have also been corrected from the first kit and are now the correct length as they were in the recent Sd.Kfz.251/22 kit.
While it is good that Dragon have corrected these parts it does provide a puzzle when buying a kit as you don’t know if they are included or not and I can only assume they are now in the original PaK 40 kit #6249 but as time goes by there will be less of the older kits around.
The rest of the gun cradle is very well detailed with many separate parts and alternate front cradle panel, separate side trunnion supports, two part recoil cylinders, traverse hand wheels and smaller fittings for a very busy assembly.
The two part main gun shields are in plastic with nice surface details and are butt joined together but have heavily bevelled edges that give a very good appearance of separate thin shields, probably the best rendition of this type of shield in plastic yet seen and has an additional etched sliding centre shield section which fits into an indentation on the inside of the two shield halves.
Included in the kit is a nice selection of plastic ‘metal’ ammo boxes (new to this kit), steel ammo canisters and 7.5cm rounds and shell cases in plastic as well as four A/T rounds in brass to add a bit of finesse. The detail on the plastic parts is very good with embossing on the canisters while six of the canisters and three empty shell cases having hollowed out ends using slide mould technology for a very realistic finish and there are separate end caps for the hollowed out canisters.
To finish off the ammo boxes and rounds the decal sheet has a good selection of stencil data in both black and white lettering to really give an authentic feel to the ammo boxes, canisters and ammo although the sheet in this kit is smaller than in the first kit.
The Fallschirmjäger gun crew is from kit #6147 ‘7.5cm Leichtgeschütze 40 w/Crew’ and has six figures that have excellent uniform, facial and equipment details to add real life to the gun optimized for the Italian campaign.
As with the first PaK 40 kit this is a very well detailed gun that offers many options possible for the PaK 40 with alternate parts such as the wheels/tyres, muzzle brakes, barrels and bonus parts plus figures and as mentioned it is good the incorrect dimensions of major parts has been corrected to make this an excellent rendition of the Late Style PaK40.
Highly recommended
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See the PaK40 Subjects page for additional reviews of PaK40 related kits/update sets.
| Marder III Ausf.H Nuts & Bolts Vol.18 128 pages, Soft Cover  |