Towing holds, Headlight, Headlight Cover
for Stug.III Ausf.A-E (Early)
Passion Models Set P35-005
1:35th Scale
Review by Terry Ashley
The set consists of 14 parts in light grey resin and two in clear resin which are finely cast with a minimum of cleanup of just small casting blocks to be removed. The castings are extremely fine (thin) with some quite small parts (the butterfly clips) and you will need to take care during cleanup and assembly.
The towing hooks are cast in one piece and the cast appearance and contours of the real parts are captured very well the with most kit parts being too crisp at the edges and the resin parts include the head light post mountings and head light cover mountings.
The resin towing hooks use the donor kit tow pin and you have to fully drill out the pin holes and trim the small casting residue from the underside with this being the only cleanup needed.
The dome head light covers have a small casting block at the back to be carefully removed and the two part cover doors also have just a very small casting block to remove before use as do the headlights. The covers could be thinned a little for a better look and this should be easy to do with light sanding on the inside faces.
There were no instructions included with my set but assembly is very straightforward and should be done in a set sequence for best results. I have added the parts to the Tamiya StuG III kit but the same procedure can be used with the Dragon kits.
Firstly remove the moulded on mountings from the kit hull parts and glue the front towing hook mountings to the hull with cyanoacrylate after the upper and lower hull parts have been assembled during the normal kit construction.
The headlights are hollow with the bulb depicted and the front lens is a separate part in clear resin which you should assemble and then add to the mounting post hole provided and this fitted without any trimming required.
The head light cover dome is then glued in place ensuring it lines up correctly and some very minor trimming may be needed around the lower edges for a perfect fit but I only needed the smallest amount trimmed to fit the cover in my set.
Next the two part front door covers are added, first the fixed lower section and some minor trimming of the door mounting points on the towing hook was needed for a perfect fit but again just a very small amount and test fitting will determine if any is needed. Some minor trimming of the hinge intermesh segments may also help for a snugger fit and test fitting will again determine if any is needed?
The upper cover door can be assembled open or closed as you wish and there are two very small butterfly bolts for the side and top of the cover to hold the front door open or closed but these bolts are slightly over scale but you really couldn't get them much finer in resin.
If you assemble the cover doors closed it would be best to leave the lights out for a better fit of the doors.
The head lights, butterfly bolts and dome cover doors appear to be a little oversized or thick but we are only taking fractions of millilitres here and given the sheer number of dimensional and detail errors in some recent mainstream kits that many don’t seem to care the slightest about then these minor issues will be a none event.
Conclusion:
A nicely cast set that captures the cast towing hooks cast effect and details
very well with just a minimum of cleanup and assembly required to add to your
chosen early StuG III kit.
Highly recommended
References:
| Sturmgeschutz III Assault Gun 1940-42 Osprey New Vanguard 19 ISBN 1 85532 537 3  |
"Stug III" Monograph Acción Press/EuroModelismo ISBN 84-95464-40-3  |
| Sturmgeschütz III in action Armor No.2014 Squadron Signal Publications ISBN 0-89747-047-8  |
Achtung Panzer Vol.5 - Stug III, Stug IV Model Graphix ISBN: 4499226546  |
Thanks to Passion Models Japan for the review set.
Page created May 13, 2006