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5cm Pak(t) Sfl.Fgst. Pz.Kpfw.35R 731(f) 1:35


Mike

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5cm Pak(t) Sfl.Fgst. Pz.Kpfw.35R 731(f)
1:35 Hobby Boss


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The Germans in WWII fell into the habit of reusing captured equipment, which was always fun for spares and repairs, but led to some interesting cut-and-shut jobs appearing that probably shouldn't have ever got past the sketches on napkins after a glass or two of the local vino. After the capitulation of France, a number of Renault R35s found their way into Nazi hands, with some of them being used in general security duties where their obsolescence was less important. Others were converted to various tasks, and this particularly catchily titled "thing" was one such beast.

Originally sporting a 37mmm Czech gun in a slab-sided casemate emplacement perched on the R35 chassis, this sub-variant was up-gunned with a German built 5cm piece with a longer barrel, which gave it more hitting power. Although it was comparatively well-armoured and well-armed in this guise, the type as a whole was used more in protecting territory than in the front line, mainly due to its poor speed over ground, and the constant arms race making it less formidable as time went by. There is very little information available about this variant, with most pictures relating to other variants with different armament options.


The Kit
In keeping with Hobby Boss's liking for the unusual, this kit is of a vehicle that saw little service in small numbers, and yet here we have a styrene injected kit of it, and not only do we have the exterior, but we have a fairly comprehensive interior to boot! The kit arrives in a fairly compact top-opening box, which is full to the brim with over 500 parts. There are eleven sprues in a sand coloured styrene, two sprues in brown styrene containing tracks, and a solitary upper hull part in the sand styrene. There is also a sheet of Photo-Etch (PE) brass, decal sheet, instruction booklet, and separate colour printed painting and markings guide.

The first thing that impresses is the sheer number of parts, and that the designers have managed to squeeze so much detail into such a small chassis. Then you look at the top heavy chassis and you might have a little smirk, as it reminds me of the similar Bison that sits up and begs whenever it is fired. When that moment of levity has passed, poring over the instructions shows that there will be a lot of painting to do as you go along, with an almost complete interior, the gun breech and mount, as well as the open-topped gun shroud that invites the viewer to look inside. You'll need to plan the build with that in mind, and once the interior is complete, there will be some masking to protect the effort you have applied there. There is always the option of the canvas "tent" that could be applied to the top to keep the weather out. You could sometimes see these stowed to the rear of the casemate, so with the addition of some rolled out Sculpey or similar, you could reduce your workload by covering over the interior.

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The engine is first to be constructed, with a two part block that is heavily detailed with additional parts, a great many of which are absolutely tiny, which conspires to give you a very nicely depicted motor for your R35 chassis. Work then commences on integrating the engine with the lower hull, beginning with the sand-cast rear bulkhead, which has the idler tensioning devices and towing hook added, after which the radiator, cooling fan and ducting are assembled with the power-take-off wheel projecting from the rear of the box. The hull itself is made up from two side panels and a floor piece, into which the radiator housing, a styrene/PE stiffening plate and driver controls are added. The side panels are fitted out with three return-rollers and a final drive housing per side, and four bogies with two wheels per housing and a big suspension spring are built up. Two more solo bogies, two drive sprockets and two idler wheels are also constructed, and are installed on the suspension mounting points on the hull sides. At the same time the driver's seat, fuel tank and engine-mount bulkhead are ensconced within the hull, and the rear bulkhead closes up the rear. After adding a few more driver controls and their linkages, the drive-train is dropped into the hull, with a transmission housing added to the front, and driver-shafts to the sprockets complete the drive-train.

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Tracks. Given their small size in 1:35, HB have decided to go down the link and length route, and I can't say I blame them. The straight track runs are made up from six parts with a few links in between the curved lower sections, and twelve individual links at each end. Each of the individual links have three sprue gates, while the lengths have additional dead-end tabs that ensure against short-shot links, and also double as ejector-pin positions, saving the delicate detail from marring by mis-alignments. Unless you're going to the trouble of using metal replacements, these should do you proud with a bit of sympathetic painting and weathering. Give them a rub with an artist's pencil to impart metallic sheen where they get worn, and you'll never know they weren't metal. With the tracks in place, the full length fenders are added, along with a little stowage and a big bottle-jack on the right rear.

The upper hull is a very nicely moulded single part with a rather too-fine casting texture that you might want to augment with a stiff brush and some Mr Surfacer. The off-centre transmission housing cover is added to the right side, while the driver's two-part hatch is placed into the right side, with the option of having his flip-up vision port open if you choose, by swapping one opener for another when adding the instrument panel and hydraulic prop to the underside of the upper hull. At this point the upper hull is glued to the lower, hiding away most of the detail in the very rear of the hull. The side-mounted exhaust muffler and a set of pioneer tools are added to the port side, and on the starboard a small vertical panel with what looks like a starter handle fits to the rear corner.

The casemate surrounding the gun is built onto a separate floor that sits on top of the original hull, but first the 50mm gun must be built up. Like the engine, it is high on parts, with a horizontally split barrel and multi-part breech sat upon the mount and recoil mechanism. Elevation and traverse mechanisms and a rather simple iron-sight are glued to the mount, and a number of bracing tubes are added to the sides to support the dual-layered inner gun-shield. The outer casemate shield is then decked out with equipment such as ready-rounds, pistol holster, ammo pouches and a gasmask canister, plus the sighting hatch cover. The floor to the compartment is then flipped over to install the fillet that allows it to fit neatly to the curvy cast upper hull, with a number of short brackets supporting the overhanging bustle. Righting the floor allows the fitting of the radio box and other internal details, before adding the large ammo boxes that fill the bustle area and explain the bustle supports you added earlier! The gun mounts on a pair of holes in the floor, and the casemate front slides over the barrel and mates with the edge of the floor panel, as does the rear bustle. You may have noticed a pair of sprue protectors around the sharp front of the bustle part, as it tapers to a point and could easily be damaged without them. Take these off and clean up the gates at the last moment, or you might find yourself regretting it. Two crew access doors on the sides fill the gaps, and could be posed open if you wanted to show off your hard work, and that just leaves you to glue the casemate to the hull.


Markings
HobbyBoss aren't overly generous with markings at times, and given the lack of information that's available on this variant of a lesser known Beutepanzer, it's hardly surprising that the instructions show a Panzer Grey scheme and you get a set of four white crosses with two rows of white numerals from 0 to 9. For some unexplained reason there's also a set of white crosses with sand coloured centre lines. They're not shown in the markings guide either, which is odd.

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The decals are printed in-house, and look to have good colour density and sharpness, while the sandy crosses are in good register – not that it matters! Use one of the spare numbers or crosses to test their light-fastness, and double up with other spares if any grey shows through.


Conclusion
A nicely detailed weird little tank that has a lot of parts in the box when you consider how small it is, even after the casemate was grafted on. Even though it wasn't one of the best designs of WWII, it's still a personable tank, and well worth a punt if you like to model off the beaten track.

Highly recommended.

Out of stock at time of writing :(
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Review sample courtesy of
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  • 1 month later...

It's a 5-cm Panzerabwehrkanone (anti-tank gun) Selbstfahrlafette (self-propelled gun) on the Fahrgestell (chassis) of an R35 Panzerkampfwagen (armoured fighting vehicle), or, as Mike put more concisely, "thing". :)

The (t) after the PaK stands for the German word tschechische, Czech. It is used erroneously here as the model sports a German PaK 38.

Kind regards,

Adam

Edited by Vally G
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Does anyone know what the whole title means?

5cm Pak(t) Sfl.Fgst. Pz.Kpfw.35R 731(f)

5cm Anti-tank gun (Czechoslovakia (origin)) self propelled armored fighting vehicle 35R (French designation) 731 (numerical designation) (f) (French (origin)).

After visiting Normandy and Samur, I have developed an interest in these reused oddballs.

Oops, Vally G beat me to it!

Edited by wyverns4
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It's a 5-cm Panzerabwehrkanone (anti-tank gun) Selbstfahrlafette (self-propelled gun) on the Fahrgestell (chassis) of an R35 Panzerkampfwagen (armoured fighting vehicle), or, as Mike put more concisely, "thing". :)

The (t) after the PaK stands for the German word tschechische, Czech. It is used erroneously here as the model sports a German PaK 38.

Kind regards,

Adam

The Czech bit probably relates to the other version of this Tank Destroyer that had a Czech 47mm gun (just like the JagdPanzer I), so they must have left it on in error on this one. I've seen both versions of the kit and they do look very nice indeed. Also being quite small, they are handy if you want to build something in 1/35 that doesn't take up much space.

thanks

Mike

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