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DML Sd.Kfz.251/16 Flammpanzerwagen

Stages 9 to 17

These stages all deal with the main hull assembly. As with some of their other 251C releases, Dragon offers the choice of welded or riveted hull. The riveted hull was apparently as a result of several firms being contracted to produce 251’s that did not possess the experience to weld armour plate, and apart from this, no other difference exists between these variants. I chose the riveted hull because of the opportunities for weathering the model later. The fuel tanks for the flamethrowers have to be built and added here, but there is some ambiguity as to where exactly to position them. If positioned a millimetre too high, then it becomes difficult to align the upper hull later, so you might choose to leave these off until the upper hull is added. I didn’t and had to shave a little off each later. Proper alignment of the upper and lower hull is tricky in all these 251 kits from Dragon, but with a little care they can be made to fit beautifully. I usually line up the rear of the upper hull and allow some high viscosity superglue to run along the join to the lower hull from the inside, adding accelerator as I go. In stage 12 Dragon offer the choice of transparent vision blocks or the normal grey styrene ones. I chose transparent, and masked off both sides of the clear portion with Tamiya masking tape.

In stage 13, the Dragon instructions would have you fit the fire extinguisher to the inside of the left rear door. My experience later would show that it would be impossible to have the door shut and this extinguisher fitted, so it might be wiser to leave it off altogether. With the compressor assembly it can’t be seen anyway! In stage 16 I added some Elefant tool clamps as opposed to the moulded on clamps. Included as photo-etched items in the box are the scalloped support plates under each track guard, which although these can hardly be seen, they are a nice touch from Dragon and appreciated, as are the lovely brass width indictors which replace the plastic ones (also supplied). After fitting the track guards, all the associated pipe work for the flamethrowers can be installed, and these are very delicate indeed, but look fantastic when finished.