Bundeswehr Vehicles - Revell 1:144

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Bundeswehr Vehicles

Revell 1:144

The German Bundeswehr is the over-arching title of the armed forces (initially the Federal Republic) of Germany, unified as a single force, consisting of the Army, Navy and Air Force; plus various support and medical arms. The Bundeswehr was formed in late 1955 with the re-arming of West Germany's defences as part of NATO. The land force of the Bundeswehr consisted of the army (Heer) and their armoured units were supplied by the U.S. with M.47 Patton tanks. At the same time, Germany was developing there own armoured personnel carriers, in the form of the HS.30 APC, which was designed by Hispano-Suiza, and these went into service in 1958. Among the non-armoured (softskin) vehicles being issued at that time was the MAN 630 L2 5ton general service truck. This general service troop and stores carrier gained a great deal of fame as being very sturdy, in fact 'almost indistructible'; the design being based on the experiences of earlier types in the Wehrmacht during WW2.


The Kit

We have received two separate 1:144 scale vehicle kit sets from Revell; the first is the subject of this review, namely "Bundeswehr Vehicles" with the second set being "US Army Vehicles WWII". The U.S. Army Vehicles WWII kit is a spin off set that was originally included in their "U.S Navy Landing Ship Medium" kit and, as such, has already been included in a previous review here.

The Bundeswehr Vehicles set comprises of two sprues, both being identical, to make a total of six vehicles. Each sprue contains parts to make up:

• 1 x M47 Patton Main Battle Tank
• 1 x Schützenpanzer Lang HS 30 Armoured Personnel Carrier
• 1 x MAN 630 L2 5ton general service truck

These sprues are of a dark green injection-moulded construction with the whole set making up six complete vehicles, two of each from the above list.

The tracked vehicles, namely the M47 Patton tank and the HS 30 APC have solid tracks and roadwheels. Detail on the tracks of the M47 is good, with individual track links and suspension struts etc., being well defined. The detail on the HS 30's track assembly is somewhat of a disappointment; the wheels and suspension are clearly moulded but the track linkages are non-existent and showing only a smooth set of tracks. All is not lost however, as these tracks are quite thick (and in scale) and it should not take long to scribe a series of lines to give the effect of track linkages.

The MAN 630 L2 truck is also a bit of a hit and miss construction. The chassis, driver/passenger compartment, body sides and wheels look really good and detailed; however, the bonnet and grill area just form a smooth representation of that area. These trucks had a very large and recognisable MAN brand logo on the grill which makes the omission quite obvious. Again, the lack of panel lines and grill indentations can be overcome by scribing a radiator grill and bonnet compartment but I feel Revell could have spent just a little more time and finished what looks to be a fine little truck.

Decals

A small sheet of decals accompanies this set and contains enough insignia and markings for the four AFV's but not the two trucks. I'm not certain that the trucks carried any insignia and, at 1:144 scale, it is possible that the vehicle markings would be too small to apply. There are two large black crosses, with white lining, for each M47 Patton and two smaller black crosses, again with white surrounds, for each HS 30 APC. There are also four pairs of unit/vehicle markings, one pair each for the four AFV's.

These decals look a lot better in real life than they do in this scanned image and should adorn the models without any problems.

Conclusion

This set is unusual; I am not aware of another injection moulded kit of the M47 Patton tank in 1:144 scale and therefore should be very welcome. The detail, with exceptions already mentioned, is very good and these kits should build up to nice little models to accompany any diorama or perhaps even on their own as a stand alone display. Notwithstanding my earlier comments about the lack of detail on some parts, I would still highly recommend this set to the 1:144 scale AFV modeller.

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