IPMS/USA Reviews

This is a Zimmerit Decal set for the Meng Model Sd.Kfz. 182 King Turret (Porsche Turret) kit TS-037.

The set contains one sheet of textured decals and one instruction sheet.

Zimmerit was widely used on the early King Tigers. These decals will make adding the Zimmerit a lot easier.

The decals are printed onto one sheet with the patterns in relief. Individual decals are supplied for all the various areas of front, Sides and rear armor. The turret has the most decals to ensure all the areas are covered properly.

The textured pattern is very nicely raised on the decals and looks very good once applied.

It is highly recommended to primer coat under the contoured areas especially.

There are a few things to be careful with as follows. The edges of the decals once dry can be easily caught and can peel bits away. Be care applying decals 9 and 14 which go on rounded surfaces as they can fall apart easily. Last ensure you orientate decal 2 correctly.

I recommend these parts are a great addition to an already extremely well detailed kit.

OKB Grigorov is a small model company based in Bulgaria that you may not be too familiar with. The company focuses primarily on AFVs, tanks, and naval ships in 1/72, 1/350 and 1/700 scales, and they have an extensive list of products available. They produce full resin kits with photo-etch enhancements, as well as resin, photo-etch, and white metal conversion pieces for other models. More recently, they began producing some plastic AFV kits.

According to Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This law describes the action of warfare as well, and so when the Allies introduced the revolutionary "tank" onto the battlefields of Western Europe in 1916, the opposing German forces quickly attempted to blunt the tank with the introduction of anti-tank weapons together with dedicated anti-tank units, known as Panzerjagertruppe. During the Second World War the anti-tank units were known as Panzerjager, or "Tank Hunters", a separate arm of the Wehrmacht dedicated to the destruction of enemy tank forces. These troops utilized a wide variety of weapons, from man portable items such as anti-tank rifles, to towed artillery pieces such as the 3.7cm PaK and 8.8cm Flak 18, and self-propelled weapons such as the Panzerjager 1.

This is kit comprised of about 600 styrene parts of which 508 are the track pieces, 2 frets of photo etched parts, an abundant set of poly caps and a set of braded wire for the tow cables. Not listed, but in the box was a metal barrel. It appears that it would replace part C13.

The instructions include 4 different finishes, so you need to choose which one you want to make and then review the instruction to see which set you need to follow. I chose option 3 and then when thru the instruction crossing out the other options so only option 3 was showing.

The 4 options are as follows:

1. #212 sPzJgAbt 654 Battle of the Ruhr, March 1945
2. #01 Headquarters, sPzJgAbt 559 Western France 1944
3. #314 sPzJgAbt 654, Normandy, France 1944
4. #? sPzJgAbt 559, Ardennes, 1944

Step 1. Builds the road wheels, drive sprocket and idler wheel. No issues here.

The M113 is a long serving fully tracked APC that was first fielded in Vietnam by the US Army in 1962. It has long been replaced by the M2 and M3 Bradley in front line roles but this versatile chassis still has a number of units in service in support roles. One of the most interesting uses of this chassis is the M163 Vulcan Air Defense System or VADS. This marries the M113 to the M168 rotary cannon, which is a variant of the 20MM M61. This new injection molded kit from Academy is one among previously released versions of the M113 chassis. It is an oldie yet goodie chassis with some new sprues that to add the parts for the M163 variant.