IPMS Kit Review: Dragon 1/35 Sd.Kfz. 182 King Tiger Henschel Turret with Zimmerit

Dragon Models Ltd

1/35 Sd.Kfz. 182 King Tiger Henschel Turret with Zimmerit

Kit Number: 6303

Reviewed by Joe Koenig, IPMS# 31441

MSRP: $53.95
Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com

Not wanting to give you a history lesson on this tank, let’s just say that you already know as much or more than I, and I’ll leave it at that. When I saw this kit at the IPMS Nationals in 2007, I was rather excited by it. Not just another German tank, but this baby comes with the zimmerit already molded in for you! Isn’t technology great? I just had to get one and when this kit came up for review, I grabbed it fast!

I could not wait for it to get here. I came home each night hoping it would be here, and when I saw it, I dropped everything to open it up. After peeling away the clear wrapper, I did my customary cracking open one corner of the box and took a deep breath… ah, the smell of plastic!

Upon opening the box, you are greeted by the customary Dragon card that holds the photo-etch, decals, wire, clear parts, and any other "special" goodies. Then you get to the twenty-plus sprues of finely molded plastic free of flash and, even better, no punch-out marks to worry about. As usual with all of the current Dragon kits, you will end up with several parts that will find their way to the spares box. In all, you’ll have over 700 pieces, including the 240 individual "Magic Tracks." The only "downer," if you want to call it that, is the instructions. They are of the "photo" type and in color, which I personally do not like.

With all that being said, let’s get to work. In steps one to four, we find ourselves on the lower hull and the running gear. These and many other parts are carried over from their earlier release of the King Tiger, kit #6232. I decided to paint all the road wheels while on the sprues, seeing as the trim points will be sanded down later and painted, or penciled to replicate the steel wheels. I found this much easier, seeing that if assembled first, you don’t have much room between them to paint. After a little weathering and a light scrape of the blade, I glued them together.

In steps five to seven you add the rear plate and all the fitting associated with it. You have the choice of plastic or photo etch for the jack holder. Go with the photo etch . . . it’s much nicer! As another little side bar, you should add the taillight, even though they do not show it in the instructions. Upon further study, I found one in regular plastic or the new-and-improved clear plastic. I went to put on the regular one and ended up losing it to a "tweezer launch" -- not to worry, I had a spare, remember? When I went to use the clear part, I found it too short, so I used some Evergreen rod and all was well. By the way, the attachment point for this is right below the towing clevises on the left as you look forward.

In step eight you move to the upper hull, adding the entire front inside and outside pieces. The ball-mounted MG is well-detailed inside and out. The ball that is mounted to the front has a lip around it that my references show was not there, so I pulled out my hot knife and fixed the minor problem. As another sidebar, the upper hull and turret parts have the zimmerit molded in, and if you want to chip it, all you have to do is sand it down, although I found it easier to scrape it away, and then sand it. The nice thing about the zimmerit is that Dragon molded it such that you can sand it away and not change the overall dimensions of the actual vehicle.

Steps nine and ten call for assembling the tracks and joining the two hull halves together. The idler wheel is keyed so I opened mine up a bit after assembling the tracks to make up for any play when finally putting it all together. I like to assemble my tracks as one complete run before painting and weathering. You have a choice here of using the plastic or metal towing eyes. I used the metal and with a little hex nut dressed them out beautifully, but the clean-up on the metal was time-consuming.

Steps eleven to fifteen involve finishing the rest of all the upper hull fittings. Yes, you get a choice of using either plastic and photo etch, or just plastic, for the tools. All the tow cables and track cables are all fitted out with photo-etch – much happiness!

To finish the beast, steps sixteen to twenty-one deal with the turret and all its fittings. You get a choice of three cupolas, but they only tell you about two of them. You get a choice of either plastic or metal for the barrel. I used the metal one, but won’t tell you the story behind that one except to say that I had to get another . . . ouch. I wanted to make mine a command version, so I did some research and made the changes, which was no more than adding an armored pot to the engine deck and an antenna storage container on the rear deck. I used the Dragon photo-etch star antenna and bases.

I finished this using Tamiya paints over their white primer. I used oil washes and dry-brushing to complete the job. This kit has many options for parts and markings (eight). The only punch-out marks I had to deal with were on the inside of the skirts, which you won’t see when finished. You do get zimmerit parts for the Porsche version which should be out soon.

All in all, another fine model from Dragon: everything fit together well with extra parts for the spares box (as if I need more!). I would like to thank Dragon for the review sample and the gang at IPMS for the pleasure of building this model.

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