Dragon

1/35 Flakpanzer I

Kit Number: #6577 (Premium Edition Smart Kit)

Reviewed by  Gary Telecsan, IPMS 34779

MSRP: $46.99 Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com This vehicle was an attempt to get more mileage out of old, outmoded tank chasses and was moderately successful both as an infantry support weapon and in providing some AAA protection to panzer formations in the early part of World War II. The kit is awesome, very well engineered and goes together well – filler was needed in only one place. There was only one issue with fit. However, it is a complicated kit and one will need care to get it together correctly. It is not a kit that can be thrown together in a couple of weeks (the jack assembly alone is 8 parts!), but it is a thing of beauty and a joy to assemble. At first glimpse, the sheer number of parts is daunting for so small a vehicle - 13 grey and 1 clear sprues, comprising 487 grey and 30 clear parts, plus a separate hull. Of these, 55 grey and 3 clear will not be used, more if you count the two variants of the towed trailer. There are also 1 bag o' track links (I took them at their word there were 192), 4 photoetched frets, 1 bag of PE wheel rims, and 1 bag containing the PE parts for the spent shell casing cage. Many of the PE parts are duplicates of plastic parts. Take care - some of the sprues are identified by the same letter – 2 A's, 2 B's, and 2 H's with different parts. There are virtually no ejector pin marks, this little feature having been eliminated by the expedient measure of having an extra piece of sprue attached to a high percentage of even the smallest parts. As attachment points are more easily dealt with than EP marks, I welcome this change. The only EP's I found were on the underside of the fenders, and one may deal with these or not. Construction proceeds through 23 steps, and I recommend reading thoroughly before beginning construction and at each step. Virtually all steps have sub assemblies indicated therein, and one must be careful of the order in which parts are assembled. I spent more time dry fitting this kit than any other three kits I've assembled, but I loved every minute – this kit is so well engineered. Starting with the suspension and road wheels, the bag of PE circles confused me even after I read the instructions until I started fitting. They are wheel rims, and once I figured that out, the suspension went like a dream. I painted the road wheels black on the sprue, planning on using the attachment points as places to glue the tracks in a later step, and also sprayed the PE rings the base color, panzer gray. Add a dab of superglue to the rims, attach to the tracks, and then the painting of the steel portions of the road wheels could be done by brush with no touch-up needed. Assembling the leaf springs requires a bit of care; they are fragile and susceptible to breaking during clean-up. I broke one and had to resort to superglue for repair, but it isn't noticeable. The interior includes transmission and driver's station, which will be visible in the finished model, but no engine compartment. This was painted and installed into the hull (such a tight fit no glue was necessary) while I worked the various suspension arrangements. However, when I set the kit down after dry-fitting the last road wheel, I discovered that all the road wheels were not touching the table. The hull was slightly warped, most probably an issue unique to my kit. What to do, what to do. I removed the interior and set the vehicle back down. Most of the warpage was gone. This still puzzles me. As the hull was already painted, and time was ticking, I tried an expedient: I trimmed the transmission and other interior parts and reinstalled them. There is only a slight misalignment of the road wheels, and as I needed to finish, I left it alone. This is the first time I have ever gotten a warped hull in a kit, and I have no idea why such a tight fitting interior should have made it worse. Anyway, with more time it would have been easy to correct. That problem settled, I left the hull to dry and tackled the gun and trailers. The gun is very complicated, but goes together well. It is so well-fitting that I had to remove a fair percentage of the locating pins and ridges to get everything in. There are four choices of elevation, 0, 20, 40 and 60 degrees. I built the zero elevation, but dry fitted the parts for the 60 and they seemed to work well. The gun was painted and set aside. I built the PE cage for the spent casings, and it is in the pictures, but as it is very fragile, I never installed it. The trailer (Anhaenger) comes with two options: one large ammo box suspended between the wheels or the normal gun mounting base slung therein with a smaller ammo box on top. I built the first, as I loved the PE latches on the interior of the box lid, but built the mounting base option to show it. These were painted and set aside as well. Tracks came next, and the one-piece Magic TrackTM links are easy to work – there is no clean-up! I recommend using a jig to keep them aligned. I built lengths to install on the suspension as there is virtually no sag on the Pz I chassis. I had a number of links left over. I painted them black, gave them a red wash, and then dry brushed them with olive drab. I chose not to use the PE tool attachments, preferring to go with the pre-molded straps. Putting it altogether during final assembly brought me to the one fit issue in the whole kit, the fenders. First, I carefully studied the diagram and pre-drilled the holes I needed for the standard tool arrangement. None of the tools fit the locating holes. This was irritating, but not fatal. There are plenty of extra tools for the fenders and both trailers, and I made an installation. I should have lined up the tools before drilling, and I won't make that mistake next time. If you use the PE holders, you won't need holes anyway. Second, when I installed the fenders, they fit like a dream. Only when I tried to install the front fender attachments did I realize that both fenders were too far forward to allow a proper fit. The fenders are shaped to fit the superstructure, so you can't mislocate them. The rear extensions fit fine, but there is an unplanned gap on the glacis side of both front extensions. I left it unfilled to show in the photos. I don't know how to fix this issue except by filling the gaps. There are five decal options, four for the same unit (hey, they didn't build a lot of these things!), and the decals went down just fine over a pre-glossed surface. They are thin but workable and responded well to solvent. My only issue is that they are crowded together on a very small sheet and must be cut apart with a knife. Even my nail scissors couldn't maneuver around in the spaces between. The only weathering I was able to get in was a first coat of yellow dust; seems like I never get around to finishing that phase before the due date! I am very grateful to Dragon for the kit, this was undoubtedly the most fun I've had building an armored vehicle in a long time! I will definitely be looking for more Smart Kit/Premium Issues!