Dragon Models Limited

1/72 scale Jagdpanzer IV L/48 Early Production

Kit Number: 7276n

Reviewed by  Dennis Tennant, IPMS# 41582

MSRP: $11.95 Available from www.dragonmodelsusa.com. A short disclaimer before I begin: I've been an avid 1/35th scale armor builder for more than 20 years, staying away from the smaller scale kits because I felt the larger models offered better molding, assembly and realism. With the deluge of kits in this scale over the last few years, I never had the need or desire to explore the advances made in these smaller scale kits. With all the improvements in mold making and manufacturing in recent years, more and more small scale armor kits have hit the market. I had heard many positive comments about the quality of these kits and decided to find out first-hand with this review. This kit consists of 140 parts -- 136 of those in grey styrene, two in etched brass and the two tracks in DS (glue-able) plastic. Cartograf decals and a well-illustrated instruction sheet round out the package. The sprues are crisply molded with zero flash. The few ejector pin marks are engineered to be hidden from view in final construction. Slide molded barrels (and you have a choice of two), road wheels and muffler leave few, if any, seams to clean up. The road wheels are molded in two pieces, allowing separate painting and easier prepping. The main hull is cast in one beautiful piece. No warping or blemishes visible on the hull and two mounting holes are in the bottom for easy basing after construction.

The tiny pioneer tools are a work of art. They are attached to sprues and have as good or better detail than some of the 1/35th scale kits I've built in recent years. You have the option of using brass or plastic schurtzen with brass giving a more scale appearance. I chose to use the brass ones in this kit. The tracks are well-detailed and made from plastic that can be glued with regular plastic glue instead of the usual drill of melting the connectors together. All in all, an impressive amount of parts for such a small model. I started this build by separating the larger pieces from the sprue and removing the plastic attachment points with a fine emery board. I chose to use the barrel with the muzzle brake, leaving the second, non-braked version, to the spares box. As I said before, the barrel and other slide-molded pieces required just a few swipes with fine sandpaper before assembly. I painted the two-piece road wheels before removing them from the sprues so I could take full advantage of their separate casting. I set them aside to dry and tackled the pioneer tools next. Removing these delicate tools took a lot more work than I anticipated. The kit is molded from fairly brittle plastic and my first attempt to remove the wire cutters resulted in them being broken beyond repair. All the tools were attached too closely for my nippers to remove safely so I fired up my hot knife and carefully cut the rest of the tools from their sprues. Again, cleanup was easy and the tools were painted and put aside to dry. I decided not to invest the time to try to salvage the broken wire cutters since many photos show missing tools. I rationalized that another tank in the platoon had "borrowed" them! After giving the lower hull a coat of dunkelgelb, I assembled and added the road wheels and return rollers. Eight wheels attach to four axles on each side. Construction is easy and the parts line up very nicely. I left off the drive sprockets and return wheel for later when I attached the tracks. Next, I installed the rear hull and deck along with the upper hull and was pleased to see they joined without any seams at all. The slide-molded muffler and other upper details went on next - again with no problems. I roughed up the side skirts with sandpaper and attached the plastic brackets to them with superglue and set them aside to dry overnight before painting. Since the attachment of the side armor to the tank would require a firm join, I masked the attachment points with liquid mask before painting to make sure no paint would weaken the joint. While waiting for the glue to cure, I painted the entire model, carefully masking the road wheels (which I'd painted earlier, remember?) and shot a coat of panzer yellow with green striping as seen in the kit reference photos (albeit a wee bit thicker thanks to my still-developing double-action airbrushing skills). I then glued the tracks together and painted and weathered them. Here's where I ran into trouble. Assembling the return rollers without the tracks on them caused a very tight fit at the top, forcing me to go back and lower the top return rollers to allow the track to pass between them and the top of the fenders. It was a lot of extra effort that could have been avoided had I test fitted the tracks. Next time, I'll put the tracks on first, then attach the upper hull. In retrospect, joining the hull pieces after installing the tracks would have worked fine since the fit was so excellent between upper and lower hull pieces. Next, I attached the schurtzen to the tank. I removed the masking agent from the tank and the brackets and carefully glued the pieces in place. After the glue took hold, I made the final adjustments - trying to keep the skirts as parallel to the treads as possible. After attaching the pioneer tools with superglue, I was ready to shoot a final coat of dullcoat to flatten things out and finish this project with a light dusting of pigments on the tracks and road wheels. Since two of the four paint schemes had no visible markings, I opted to model an unmarked Jagdpanzer from the 116th Panzer Division as it appeared in Normandy in 1944 and leave the decals in the box for a future project.

I put about 10 hours into building this kit and thoroughly enjoyed every moment spent reviewing it. I am awed at the improvements Dragon has made in kitting tanks at this scale. This kit is a real beauty and builds into a model that rivals its larger scale brethren in detail and quality. I don't think this will be my last "Braille scale" armor kit! Thanks to Dragon for providing this kit for review.

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