¹⁄35

Building a Leichter Panzertriebwagen!

History
In 1943 it has been decided to place an order for light and heavy armored draisines (train-cars) which would control, either employed as single vehicle or complete train, selected railway sections. Starting in the spring of 1944, four armored trains (No. 301-304) with light draisines were supplied to the Balkan battlefields. Pictures and combat history of these units are very rare.

Armament: 4 Light MG
Crew: 6
Engine: Steyr, 76HP
Armor: 14.5mm
Combat weight: 8 tons

The Kit - Leichter Panzertriebwagen, Steyr K2670
In a moment of destiny my internet friend Roberto Flores arranged, without my knowledge, for a pre-production 1/35 kit of the Leichter Panzertriebwagen (from the Spanish company X-Proxect) to be issued to me for construction and review. Apart from the time limit I had for construction, an additional challenge was to ensure the work would turn out satisfactorly, that pictures of my draisine would be used as box-art for the series-produced-kits. Until the release of this kit, no model of this vehicle was available in 1/35, except for the VACU formed kit of the subsequently deceased company Schmidt (from Germany).

The kit consists of upper and lower hull, one piece of resin with all the smaller parts as MG’s, tools, antenna supports, etc., one fret with etched parts and a piece of 0,8mm diameter plastic rod. The resin consists of a bright yellow, little smelling ( even if it comes to sanding ) material and has a consistence similar to soap. The upper hull is hollow, but the walls are quite thick to prevent bending. The surface represents a very delicate “armour-pattern” and is completed by beautifully reproduced weld-seams. Most parts like MG-bays, vision slits and turret copulas are already formed on the upper hull and therefore one might get the impression to finish the kit rather quickly. But there are a few obstacles which might delay work. I will refer to them in this article. On the upper part I discovered 2 larger bubbles prior and 3 tiny ones after airbrushing the first layer of paint. Two MG-bays were housing small resin-balls which could be removed easily.

The lower hull represents the frame, wheels and 4 rectangular armor-shields to cover the wheels. The wheels are only represented for 50%, only the visible parts are molded. This might be a drawback for a technology-freak who expected details of wheels support, drive chain, etc.