Dragon

1/35 Jagdpanzer IV L/70

Kit Number 9061

Reviewed By Chad Richmond, #10346

One of the highlights of the IPMS National Convention in Atlanta was the Dragon Hobby Expo right next door.  Talk about a modeler’s opportunity to spend a few days in heaven!  One of the things that Dragon USA did in conjunction with the Expo was to release a model of the Jagdpanzer IV/L70 in the markings of ROB-Gefreiter Johann Huber.  Mr. Huber was one of the speakers at their convention. 

Johan Huber entered service with the Wehrmacht in 1944 at 19 years old.  He had hoped to have an assignment in panzers, and was well qualified due to his civilian work experience with a military contractor.  Initially he was assigned to a motorcycle unit, but was eventually able to get assigned to the 7th Panzer Division in the 25th Panzer Regiment and served valiantly against the Russian advancement into Germany, receiving numerous awards for valor.  When Germany surrendered, Huber became a POW and was interned at Hagen-Land.  Even though his military experience was short his aptitude and skill in panzer operations allowed him to become an advisor to the Bundeswehr years later.  He is the author of “So War Es Wirklich”, or “How It Really Was”.

The kit is a reissue of the old kit, with the addition of a very nice turned aluminum barrel, a large photo etch sheet of the schurtzen and mounting brackets, and a Cartocraft decal sheet.  Since this is a commemorative issue, the only markings are for Huber’s Jagdpanzer.  The box art is a very nice left side view, which helps with painting.  More on that later.

The kit goes together very well, despite its age, and there are only a few areas that require any filler or trimming.  That is, if you don’t count ejector pin marks that have to be filled or scraped, or both.  The individual track links each have two of these that have to be dealt with.  It took me 18 hours to fill all the marks with Super Glue and trim them.  The track links also require some scraping at the junction to get them to fit.  The instruction sheet is a little sketchy on some of the mounting of external equipment, and some of the mounting holes have to be drilled, and some have to be filled.  There is some confusion in this area, but nothing serious.

The kit box art does not show the schurtzen, so I left them and their brackets off.

I still haven’t figured out how to mount the tracks before finishing the vehicle and then painting it, so I did my track runs in two pieces; the bottom and the drive sprocket and return roller curves and then the top section with the sags. The instruction sheet does not tell you how many links are required for each run, so it is a guess.  I hit it just right in the left side, and was one short on the right.  Amazingly, the length was perfect in both cases.  I have never had that happen before.

The one place I did have trouble with the instruction sheet was in painting the three color camouflage pattern.  Front and rear drawings, an overhead drawing and a left side drawing are provided, with the colors shown in various shades of blue.  No depiction of the camouflage on the right side of the vehicle is given.  Where I ran into problems was the progression from painting the left side of the vehicle to the right side.  The pattern drawings do not interlink.  So, my camouflage pattern probably isn’t anywhere close to what Huber’s Jagdpanzer IV/L70 looked like, but I was happy with it.  I used Tamiya acrylic paints throughout, with considerable lightning done to the dark green.  I couldn’t tell you what the formula is, if I had to.  All I can say is it looks good to me.  I mixed some medium brown with PollyScale clear flat and sprayed the lower hull and running gear to dirty things up.

I would like to thank Dragon USA for the review kit and John Noack for allowing me to build it.

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