MSRP: $32.00 USD As most of us model builders know, Italeri bought out ESCI (or at least a large number of their molds) and have
taken to re-releasing them. One of their latest endeavors is the German Horse Drawn Convoy. When ESCI owned the molds, they
produced three distinct kits: A Horse Drawn Supply Wagon (with supplies), A Horse drawn Ambulance, and a German Rest
Camp. They also included all three in their German Horse Drawn Convoy. Italeri has combined the two wagon kits and
tossed the soldiers at rest to give us their version of the Horse Drawn Convoy. What you get us a very attractive box
constructed of light cardboard with a nicely done artist’s rendition of the two wagons. Inside you get four sprues of dark gray
plastic consisting of 160 pieces. Only the horse and accessory sprues were bagged in my example and 2 of the wagon parts had broken
off and were loose in the box. You also get a thin tan styrene sheet to cut and use as the reins for the horses. The Instruction
sheet is of the fold out type and is multilingual, with decal and painting options for four different wagon convoys. There are two in
1942 and two for Italy in 1944. You get a much smaller decal sheet. Italeri gives you more wagon options whereas the ESCI decal
sheet gave you fewer wagon option markings but more personal uniform markings. The Italeri kit is no different from the ESCI version
sprues other than the fact that ESCI colored theirs using tan. The molds haven’t suffered a bit over the years. The plastic is still
crisp and virtually flash free. This kit, either together or separately, lends itself to some really great diorama possibilities.
You can even combine these with the Tamiya GulashKanoneWagon and the Field kitchen Scenery kit and the possibilities can
be drawn even further. This is another great re-release but (in my opinon) has too high a price tag. I paid only $10.00 for my ESCI
version about 9 years ago at a outlet store. This would make a great kit to practice your animal painting skills on as well as animal
conversions. It is a neat vehicle to construct the OLD MEETS NEW diorama ideas from. |