MiniArt German Field Workshop (35591) 1:35

[Mike]

German Field Workshop (35591)

1:35 MiniArt via Creative Models Ltd

 

 

It's a constant in warfare that the troops break equipment and the mechanics/fitters repair them, whether it's wear-and-tear, accidental damage, clumsiness, misuse or due to enemy action, it all ends up in the same place if it's deemed suitable for repair, providing it's not behind enemy lines or under heavy bombardment.  From WWII onwards, fighting tended to be fast-moving, so transporting anything back to a bricks and mortar workshop well behind the lines is nigh on impossible, and highly impractical once the lines of communication stretch too far, so the field workshop is used instead.  This can be anything from a literal field to a large building that is commandeered by the "grease monkeys" so they can ply their trade.

 

 

 

 

This set depicts the typical small and medium tools that you would find in a WWII German field workshop, and arrives shrink-wrapped in a top opening box with nineteen sprues of mid-grey styrene, a small Photo-Etch (PE) fret and a decal sheet inside, along with a small instruction booklet.  A lot of these sprues have made appearances in other sets from MiniArt on occasion, so if you've got a good memory some of it will seem familiar.  The most recognisable being the two fuel drums.  They are made up from halves to which the top and bottoms are added, then two stiffening bands are fixed to the grooves in the drums, each made up from two parts.  There is a choice of end-caps with different wording in raised lettering, and if you leave off the centre filler cap you can make up the hand-pump with nozzle at the other end of a piece of hose/wire that you supply yourself.  The rest of the equipment is best depicted in list form, and everything in the foreground of the box art will also be found inside the box:

 

2 x fuel drums with manual pump (detailed above)

1 x portable oil tank (3 parts)

1 x axle stand (3 parts)

1 x 5-step ladder (3 parts)

1 x open-topped tool box (2 parts)

1 x blow torch (3 parts)

2 x buckets, one tapered the other cylindrical (3 & 2parts)

3 x jerry cans (6 parts each)

1 x anvil (2 parts)

1 x wooden box-plane (2 parts)

1 x 2-man saw with PE blade (5 parts)

1 x hacksaw with PE blade (2 parts)

1 x wood saw with PE blade (2 parts)

1 x bench vice (2 parts)

1 x car jack (3 parts)

2 x foot pump (car type – 4 parts each)

2 x each of chair, stool and bench (3, 5 & 4 parts each)

4 x oxy-acetylene bottles with either regulators or top-caps (5 parts each)

1 x tubular-framed welding cylinder trolley with wheels and PE chain (9 parts)

2 x electrode tubes for welding rods (2 parts each)

3 x wooden crates of various sizes (8, 6 & 6 parts each)

2 x pivoting tool box (open & closed) with PE lids, stays and full complement of tools, some PE and some styrene (8 & 33 parts)

 

That should be plenty to outfit any small workshop, and if you look closely there are other undocumented tools on some of the sprues such as oxy-acetylene torches, masks, goggles, hammers, axes, spanners, oil can, G-clamps and a belly-brace drill (minus bit).

 

Markings

The decal sheet is printed by DecoGraph, and it is small but perfectly formed, containing regulator dials for the oxy-acetylene bottles, white crosses for two of the jerry cans, and a yellow stripe nameplate for the oil tank.  The various colours for the parts, including the undocumented tools are called out in a reproduction of the box art on a white background, pointing our colours with a code that converts to Vallejo, Mr.Color, LifeColor, Tamiya, AK, Mission Models codes in the table below it.

 

Conclusion

This set will be a boon to anyone depicting maintenance by German mechanics around the WWII era, although many of the tools haven't changed all that much since or before then and the same designs were seen around the world, so their use at least in part could be much wider than the era they have been assigned.

 

Highly recommended.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of