Lion Roar

1/48 Stug III B Detail Set For the Tamiya kit

Stock Number: LA48002

Reviewed By  Chad Richmond, IPMS# 10346

MSRP: $6.95 Imported by Dragon USA (www.dragonmodelsusa.com) This set was first issued a couple of years ago when Tamiya first released their 1/48th scale Stug IIIB. With the set you get an aluminum barrel and three photo etch sheets, one in brass and one in a white metal. The latter has the intake screens, and they are very, very soft and bend very easily. More about them later. The set comes in a very sturdy box with a photograph of the model of the Stug III with the set installed. I highly suspect that the photograph is of the Tamiya 1/35th scale kit, as they make that set also, and the photograph is the same. Included is an 8 1/2 X 11 instruction sheet showing the proper bends and installation of all of the photo etch. The aluminum barrel is really nice, but really isn't essential to the set. The kit barrel is one piece, and is really nice, as well Not being a great fan of photo etch parts, many of the parts are fiddly to me, and of course, are highly launchable. The brass sheets are also soft, so there is not much need to anneal any of the parts. They bend very easily. There are several tool tie-down latches, the antenna bracket, cargo bracing, and a really great fire extinguisher bracket. Included also are some short lengths of chain. At this scale, with a little twist here and there, they can be made to look realistic. However, fit becomes an issue with nearly all of the parts, especially the antenna bracket and holder, and the cargo frame. You can look at the instruction sheet, the parts themselves and the photo, and see three different ways of fitting the parts. I'm not sure which is correct. Unpainted and without the whole model assembled, they look questionable and are hard to verify with many references. But, as we all know, army ingenuity during wartime tends to take some strange and unique turns. So, anything is possible. As I stated earlier the engine screens are very soft and bend very easily. One screen fit perfectly and looked great. The other, for some reason I still haven't figured out, did not fit as well. But, things do have a tendency to get bent and broken during use, so that's acceptable. One small point - the screens on the fret, the screens in the photograph and the screens in the instruction sheet drawing are different. Go figure. I didn't use all of the little fiddly bits, but there's certainly enough here to give a lot of detail to a really superior model kit. Thank you to IPMS/USA for allowing me to do the review and thanks to Dragon USA for providing the review sample.

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