¹⁄35

DML Sd.Kfz.251/16 Flammpanzerwagen

Stages 18 to 21

Assembly of the flamethrowers themselves are covered by these stages. I found these stages to be the most difficult of the entire model. Alignment of the parts is weak at best; I would have preferred the instructions to be a lot clearer about this. Once built, with the photo-etched shields they look great, but I still can’t help feeling that I may have certain things on them pointing the wrong way since I could not find any good references for these. Dragon offer a choice of flamethrowers to be fitted, I chose the ones with open ends. The choice of whether or not to fit the off vehicle flamethrower to the rear door can also be taken here, and although I think it looks good when finished, it did prove difficult to fit to the two photo-etched brackets supplied, at least in the way Dragon portray in the instructions.

The final stage deals with the assembly of the tracks and various fittings to the vehicle. I have built several 251’s from Dragon and found it worthwhile to use a jig to produce the tracks. The first couple I built, I used superglue, and although the tracks looked fairly good when I had finished, the use of a jig produces a dead straight run of the tracks and looks far superior. The jig I use is constructed of a base of plasticard and two lengths of H-beam. Apart from making the tracks dead straight it also speeds up construction enormously! You can afford to make a couple of mistakes, but not many. You should have about 10 links left over when you have finished.