I decided to start a 1/72 Deutsche Afrika Korps wargaming army and the first AFV model I ordered from Hannants UK were a few boxes of the Armourfast Pz. Kpw. III Aus G. Each box contains two tanks and are designed to be used mainly for wargames, thus are easily assembled. Inside the box are two sprues, with parts for each tank on one each. A separate small sprue molded in grey holds the new side skirts. These will go to my bitz box.
There are no decals, no painting instructions and the like, only a simple assembly diagram on the box.
The instruction diagrams however aren't very helpful though so you'll need to know your way around a Panzer III:) I had a problem aligning the tracks. Both parts do not have alignment hubs. I ended up eyeballing them and glued each track one at a time to get the distance right. Another problem was that the roadwheels dont really touch the hull and they end up floating unattached. If you try to glue them to the hull, the tracks will bend inwards and will look really odd when viewed from the front or back. A solution would be to add thickness to the roadwheels but I didn't bother since I wanted to knock these up as fast as I can.
The tiny viewports on the hull and on the turret were a bitch to place properly since there were no alignment nubs and I had to eyeball them again using reference pictures. I left out the exhaust since I coulndt figure out how and where to attach them. The sprue also has parts for a single extra road wheel. Here's the finished model sans paint. I'll be making the rest of the tanks soon then on to painting and weathering. I'll be scrounging up stowage such as jerry cans, ammo boxes, tarps, and maybe some extra tracks, etc. from other models. It would be nice if Armourfast had a small accessory sprue for such things.
The end result looks nice, even without the details a static model would boast having. I had some problems getting parts glued to the correct places mainly because of the lack of alignment nubs and one of my viewport parts seemed deformed. I'm also stumped with the exhaust part and left it off until I could decipher where it goes. The finished model looks about right and seems robust enough to withstand constant handling. All in all, a nice wargame model.
There are no decals, no painting instructions and the like, only a simple assembly diagram on the box.
The instruction diagrams however aren't very helpful though so you'll need to know your way around a Panzer III:) I had a problem aligning the tracks. Both parts do not have alignment hubs. I ended up eyeballing them and glued each track one at a time to get the distance right. Another problem was that the roadwheels dont really touch the hull and they end up floating unattached. If you try to glue them to the hull, the tracks will bend inwards and will look really odd when viewed from the front or back. A solution would be to add thickness to the roadwheels but I didn't bother since I wanted to knock these up as fast as I can.
The tiny viewports on the hull and on the turret were a bitch to place properly since there were no alignment nubs and I had to eyeball them again using reference pictures. I left out the exhaust since I coulndt figure out how and where to attach them. The sprue also has parts for a single extra road wheel. Here's the finished model sans paint. I'll be making the rest of the tanks soon then on to painting and weathering. I'll be scrounging up stowage such as jerry cans, ammo boxes, tarps, and maybe some extra tracks, etc. from other models. It would be nice if Armourfast had a small accessory sprue for such things.
The end result looks nice, even without the details a static model would boast having. I had some problems getting parts glued to the correct places mainly because of the lack of alignment nubs and one of my viewport parts seemed deformed. I'm also stumped with the exhaust part and left it off until I could decipher where it goes. The finished model looks about right and seems robust enough to withstand constant handling. All in all, a nice wargame model.
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