Bronco

1/35 Leichte Panzerspahwagen (MG) SDKfz 221

Kit Number: 35013

Reviewed by  Kip Rudge, IPMS# 40597

MSRP: $59.95 Kit Supplied by Stevens International: www.stevenshobby.com In the timeline of armor modeling, the current period will be fondly remembered as either the bomb-diggity or - to quote Madison Avenue - BOOM to the power of BOOM! Unthinking model producers pummel poor unsuspecting modelers with so many new kits, so fast and with such quality that Dr. Phil should help us sort it all out. As one of the progenitors of the vast tsunami of new and better kits, Bronco is really keeping us confused as to what the master plan really is. They are kitting never-before-done subjects the way AIG hands out bonuses. And with that lengthy, obtuse and generally off topic segue, I am brought to Bronco's SDKfz 221. The Kit Bronco's 221 is the first ever kitted in 1/35th styrene as far as I know, and I'm older than color television. In the box - which has some cool cover art by Vince Wai - there are five plastic sprues with just about the right number of parts, a clear sprue, a nice fret of photo etch, a pair of sweet turned brass width indicators (these will come in handy) and a bag with two sizes of coil springs. The molding and detail in this kit are as good as anything on the market right now. A couple of things to get all slobbery over include the one-piece drive train, humma humma tires/wheels, exceptional weapons sprue and, of course those sweet little width indicators (they will come in handy). Not to be forgotten is a nice decal sheet that covers four vehicles in both France and Poland. Also Bronco does a nice job with the ever under-appreciated instruction sheet. It's nicely done in exploded drawings and printed in a nice glossy booklet. Let's Get Gluey… The hammering and sawing commences with the running gear/suspension. The lower hull tub is the recipient of many bits and bobs (that's scientific talk for little pieces) that coalesce nicely into the frame and running gear. Try to keep the upper suspension mounts (part B15) swinging freely (like four wild and crazy guys) because this will help you get the wheels settled on the ground later. The last step on the underside of the hull tub is the mount the lower suspension mounts along with the large set (Eight of the springy buggers) of coiled springs. Let me stop here and advocate global acceptance of the small coil spring in armor modeling. If you've ever tried to clean mold seams on injection molded coil springs (and who among us hasn't?) you'll weep in joy that real tiny coil springs look exactly like big coil springs, with none of the clean up. Buzinga! Let's look inside Now we get to DIY the interior of this little bad boy. Bronco has been kind enough to include pretty much the complete fighting compartment interior (Let's hoist a Guinness!). And now comes the only real rub with this kit. In a nutshell, I was unable to confirm what Bronco provided is indeed the interior of a 221. I do know that it mirrors completely the interior of the Littlefield 222. And it does this very nicely. Can I say the Bronco interior is wrong? Nope. But I can't say it's right either. I do know that the Bronco interior does not match the interior pictured in the instructions for the old Sovereign resin kit, of which I obtained a copy. However, the Sovereign interior show a radio installation that we know wasn't in the early 221s. In spite of a great deal of discussion on various websites ("What are you wearing?"), an actual photo or diagram of the 221 interior was never produced. There are some logical considerations for thinking the 221 interior is somewhat different than that in the 222/223 series. First - it's German. Well yeah, we all know the Germans never standardized the interior in anything (check the four bathrooms in Himmler's mobile home - website www.heinrichscrapper@sgf.com). Hence we are to wonder what the 222 interior morphed from. Also since the 221 had no radio equipment it stands to reason that the vehicle was supplied with signal flags and flares that are not included in the kit. So we can only speculate until some more reference arrives, or we stop caring. What the kit does give you is well detailed and busies up the interior enough for some ooo's and aaaah's. The driver's station is well done and only lacks a little plumbing. The fighting compartment itself has grenade racks, mg ammo stowage and various nick-nack boxes hither, dither and yon. A word about the mg ammo racks. After combing the net and my reference trying to figure out what the empty ammo rack Bronco provides held, I stumbled up the Gurtkasten 34. This is a rectangular metal container that held 250 belted mg34 rounds. I replicated them with some Evergreen strip. Not hard. While doing the interior, you have to decide if the hull hatches are going to be open or not. Bronco took the novel approach of casting the hinges for both the doors and visors separately. Getting them placed properly involved Blue Tacking (sticky blobs) the door in place and very carefully placing the hinges and applying glue. The doors are very nicely detailed and just beg to hang wide open to let the flies in. I took the liberty of adding a of bread bag to each door. Bronco engineered the interior so that most of the details - grenade racks, ammo racks and weapons - are glued to separate panels before being anchored inside the vehicle. If you plan to display the interior, this makes painting all that detail a lot easier. Ditto for the upper hull detail. I painted both hull interiors separately. Another tricky episode is the driver visors. Bronco gives you early visors on the outside and late versions on the inside. I didn't get all indignant, and thought they looked okay when complete. Once the upper and lower hull interiors are painted and weathered, it time to mask. Oh yes, you will mask. You'll need to blank off the interior side of the rear screen (yes you can see into the interior), the door openings, the turret opening and the visor openings. I often have a problem with masking tape lifting my acrylic paint job. With that in mind, I needed tacky but not grippy. I found that if I stuck the tape on my pants or forehead, the tackiness was reduced enough that no paint lifted. Plus I have no zits anymore. I glued the two hull halves together and immediately ignored the instructions. Bronco, for some ungodly reason, wants you to add all the exterior detail parts to the upper and lower hull prior to gluing the hull halves together. They obviously have not seen my sausage fingers in action. The hull on my example was slightly warped. It took a little work to get the hull to snuggle down. Watch the alignment. The real vehicle appears to exhibit a slight overhang of the upper plate on the lower plate. Once that hull is secured, dry and betting to an inside straight, start adding all those nifty details. There's not much to say regarding this part of the build, everything fits nicely and looks spiffy. I chose to go with the plastic width indicators first because they had a little nicer detail than the brass pair. I promptly broker them off and listened while the carpet monster burped loudly. Same thing happened to the command pennant holder. There is a life message there, but I'm not getting it. I ignored the broken pieces (for some reason the geek elves never found my house that night) and completed the hull uneventfully. Time to paint. Turret turrets While waiting for the hull build to harden (why not?), I went to work on the turret. Bronco made a boo boo on the original kit turret and got the sides and angle akimbo. But Bronco quickly fixed the issue and promptly sent me the new sprue. Thank you very much! The most caution in the turret assembly must be taken in regards to the PE screens. These boys are DEL-I-CATE! It's a fine display of the etcher's art, but my ham fingers truly had a tough time keeping them from getting bent or torn. I scratch built hinges to give the screens a perch. I also fashioned screen supports from brass rod and super glued them to the screens. I truly can't recommend soldering, because the screens are sooooo thin. Bronco has been kind enough to provide the turret MG34 with the option of an open receiver housing. Who can resist showing off the guts of the gun? Not I. I did not add the cylindrical magazine to the MG34 because our vehicle carries belts in the Gurtkasten 34. Remember? The kit also includes a really nice rendition of the Panzerbuchse 39, a German antitank rifle. There are a few photos of 221s replacing the MG34 with the PZB39 for a little more anti armor capability. Paint that puppy I now had three subassemblies - the vehicle, wheels and turret - and a hankerin' to paint. I've always liked the German two tone early war paint scheme - at least I've always liked it since I've known about it. Looking at photos of the Polish and French campaigns there just is no tonal difference between the German gray and the dark brown. It's only in the last several years that some stellar research and the ability to play with old photos in digital programs such as Photoshop have allowed us to see there are two colors on many German vehicles during this period. I started with my usual flat black primer coat. On top of that I lay in several layers of Gunze Sanyo Panzer Gray. I like their PG because it's very dark and lightens into a warmer gray. After the PG dried thoroughly, I freehanded the camo pattern in with Tamiya's NATO Brown. For the tires I used ModelMaster engine gray, then hit the hubs with the PG. I applied decals for 6th Panzer division 221 during the battle for France. Pass the pastels After all that stuff dried, I gloss coated everything and applied some washes of Vandyke brown in Turpenoid. There's nothing scientific about it. I just put a wash down, wait for it to dry, and do it again if I'm feeling dirty. I always use lots on the lower half and suspension cause it gets dirtier and it's in the shadows more. When I was satisfied with the washes, I sealed the whole enchilada with a coat or two of ModelMaster acrylic flat. It's the flattest flat I know. Now all us armor modelers are familiar with the joys of pastels. Those playful powders that can do most everything. The ones that made us forget about artist pastel sticks. Well, we were lucky enough here in Lynchburg VA to have a nice art supply shop open recently. Well on one wall was a large selection of pastel sticks made by a high end outfit known as Schmincke. The color selection is beyond belief (six shades of Olive Drab pastels). But these are unlike any other pastels I have ever seen. The binder used to hold the sticks together is very weak. Meaning that simply moving the stick across a fine sandpaper produces a powder that rivals any pigment known to me. The binder in the pastel powder gives it a grip on the matte surface, yet it isn't so strong that any trace of the pastel can be brushed off with a few flicks. Virtually all the semi vertical surfaces of the vehicle were streaked and dusted with my new best brofriends the Schminckes. A light dusting of flat coat muted the effect and provided the base for another go, until the streaked dirt effect met with satisfaction. I can't say they will replace my pigments, but they plug some huge gaps in pigment colors. I applied one final light pastel application following the last flat coat dusting. I follow that up with a little graphite work on the MG34 and around high use areas. Once that was completed I officially declared the 221 finished. Bronco has come out with a real gem here. All my measurements were pretty much spot on regarding scale and size. The only question mark with this kit is the interior. But I can't say it's wrong. We just don't know right now. The kit fills a long time large (too beaucoup) gap in German armored vehicles and apparently is blazing a trail for the remainder of the variants along with 222s and 223s. Yep BOOM to the power of BOOM! Thanks to Stevens International for supplying the kit and replacement turret.