So, now i finally get round to building one. I have not seen one built up or a build review of one, so, for those who may be interested, i'll try and go into as much detail as possable. My first impression of the kit was that the detail was very nice, deffinetly beyond Tamiya standard and not far off Dragon and AFV Club. Its also clear it builds up very differently from the others. Its also the first 251 kit i know of that comes with an engine. This looks very nice and while i won't be useing it on this one, i will when i do one of the /6 kits.
Its also clear that the box top is slightly misleading. It shows a very early vehicle on which the forward and rear gun mounts are the same and the antenna mount is on the left mudguard. The kit doesn't have these options and as i want to do a vehicle during the Polish campaign i need to fix thee things. The gun mount i can get from the spares box. The antenna i can leave out along with the radio. Its clear from pics that not all vehicles carried a radio until 1942, i believe it was just the platoon commaners vehicles and above which did before 42. And the this makes sense given the tactics for use by the 251 at the start of the war. And finally, the kit only comes with markings for the French and Russian campaigns. I'll use markings for one of the former and then add all white cross used in 39.
So, enoug of my first impressions and intentions, this is the kit, to which i am adding an Eduard PE set, MR Models resion set, Panzerart wheels and Hobby Boss tracks, if they fit. If they don't, i'll dig out some Fruils.
I started off on the lwer hull, and though it does not have the multitude of parts that Dragon kits have, its still nicely done.
Then the floor, this comes with the track guards molded on, first bg differance to other kits.
Then after a bit of PE on the inside and the side bins, the bins were added along with the rest of the lower side walls. Again the side walls are different from other kits, and certainly a beter fit than the Dragon kits, which are easy to get wrong if your not careful, so these were a joy.
Then got the other side all fitted. A few sink holes needed filling. And added a few other bits to the front.
So far, my impression is that this kit is first rate. Its quickly making its way towards the top of my favorite 251 kit list. Not far off AFV Club Ausf C level.
With 103 stages, the instructions do look daunting. But most of those stages only have 1 or 2 parts to fit. The above is about an hours work, not including PE, over a couple of nights and i am aleady at stage 14.
Thanks for looking, more soon.
