Jim Adams reviews the Dragon K5(E) Leopold rail gun kit.



Link to Item



If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

It builds up pretty big,you need about 42' of shelf space.
Dora,2 x that.

42" isn't too bad, unless you already have too much on your shevels at home. Thats why I listed that as a low point. But otherwise its looks to be a great kit. I am looking forward to building mine starting on July 4.

I will have to pass for a while on Dora. Thats way too big for me at the moment.

Hello,
I must say that I cannot agree with this review as the Dragon kit is much less detailed than the Trumpeter one. I had both and sold the Dragon one to buy another from Trumpeter. As I want very accurate models I must say that the Trumpeter one you can turn into a very good replica from the box, but the Dragon one is very crude on the details and have many simplifications that compromises detail and accuracy.
I have a full build of the Trumpeter one in the last issue of Xtreme Modelling if you want to see my point and interest for accuracy.
Other thing too: the Dragon model is very expensive for what it offers, and with a little search I managed to buy my both 2 Trumpeter ones for less than the Dragon one.
Finally, I would like to say that I love all the recent models from Dragon as they are excellent, but I must say too that their K5(E) and Karl Morser are very crude and I believe they only came to market because of the Trumpeter offers.

G'Day

Before tackling this beastie I stromg;y suggest you get a copy of Armor PhotoGallery #12 "German Railway Gun Leopold 28cm K5(E)" by Jan Coen Wijnstok. This is a must have reference for any builder of either Dragon's or Trumpeters K5-lots of colour photos of the APG K5, scale plans in both 35th and 72nd and wartime photos of K5s in action and captured.

There are "written references" around- just gotta know where to look.

Have fun building it!!

Cheers

Luis,

If you'd be willing to do a Build Review of the Trumpeter kit we'd be happy to have it. It's one that we are missing and would be of great value to have available to our users.

Hello,
Dear Bill,
As I wrote, I already have a complete article on the building of Trumpeter K5(E), that was published on the last issue of Xtreme Modelling.
I Believe that with some adjustments it can be sent to you to publish on Armorama. I can do it and send the article if you want. But I have some doubts on the time to publish things here, as I've been waiting for MANY months to see the complete article on my IPMS-UK (Telford) gold winner Panther II that I sent to Jim Starkweather to be published here on Armorama. I am still waiting. Don't you think that this previous article should be published first before a new one?
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Best regards,
Luis Alho

Perth has a very detailed comparison of the two kits. Unless it's a brand new Leopold, it's probably not worth the money.

So far I have been toying around with the 1/144 scale guns -but if you can show me where to look for a cheap Trumpeter one, I'd be grateful


(I think the gun on the 2 Tiger chassis was not a K5 one, but I'm not sure. I'll check.)

Luis,

I had the Features side of things for several months before moving over into Reviews in December and never saw or received the article from Jim Starkweather, so it's possible that it slipped through the cracks somehow. Best bet for getting items published is to deal with the Editor staff under our revised structure as Jim's a busy guy with all the technical machinery that has to be kept running and isn't involved in the day-to-day publication of items here on the site. I know your Panther II was entered into the DMoM some months back but that's the extent of it as far as I was aware.

If you'd like to write up a Build Review of the Trumpeter kit (and you are able to do so without violating your arrangement with Xtreme Modelling) I can assure you that it will be handled promptly.

Hello again,
As I said my article on my Panther II was an exhaustive one on the corrections on the Dragon model with lots of scratchbuild parts including a new turret based on the Panzertracts book on the Panther F and II. I am still looking forward to see it published.
Looking the performance on the DMoM I shell say that popular votes are very strange at least. I think most people vote not with careful eyes but on the model they like or they know the author. The other option is my photo wasn't good at showing the model. If you want to have the trouble, please ask Jim for my article and photos and read and see the model with your own eyes. Then let me know. Perhaps you could remember him on the article? I believe he may have forgotten it again.
As on the review on the Trumpeter K5(E), I will try to modify my article for Xtreme Modelling on a near future as time permits and let you know then.
Best regards,
Luis Alho

Luis,

For Features articles, you need to talk with Henk Meerdink, perhaps send him a PM?

I look forward to seeing your modified article as a Build Review.

I realize this thread has been quiet for some time now, but im currently in the final stages of building Trumpeter's K5. So far its taken 10 months to build, and while in comparison to the Dragon kit it is extemely accurate, there are also some pitfalls. I dont know what Trumpeter was thinking when they made this kit, but they use about 20-50 ejector pins per sprew, its absolutely rediculous. Ive spent hours filling and sanding parts in places they should never have needed it, the main chassis peices have 3 large craters in them from ejector pins, and almost all the medium sized peices have at least one spot where a pin has put a mark into the peice. The deck on the generator car is the worst by far; the top is highly detailed, but the underside has about 20-30 holes in it on the visible part alone and another 10-15 on the hidden section, which is just fine. The people who designed the moulds could have done a much better job, ive found countless peices that have a beautifully moulded underside, yet the visible section is riddled with divits from ejector pins. On top of that, almost every peice has a small ridge from where the two halves of the mould came together, which is expected to some degree, but Trumpeter could have easily found a way to make higher quaility parts. All this does is add hour after hour of pre-painting work to your model which is already going to take a very long time to build.

However, if this is not an issue for you and you have the time to finish the peices nicely, you end up with a beautiful kit that is (apart from the above) highly detailed. I would suggest aftermarket shells though, as the included ones dont even line up when the halves are assembled. The only other setback from the poor moulding of the peices is that the designers overlooked a few things, mainly the underside and interiror of the carriage; there are several sections where either wiring or copper piping is present on the real K5 (E) that has been completely overlooked, but this is easily overcome. What is the biggest dissapointment of the kit apart from the poor moulding of the parts, is that the designers slacked off horribly on the underside of the carriage. There are two sets of chains, one front left, the other right rear, that were (from what ive gathered through research) intended to connect the chassis to the railcars for some reason, im assuming in the event the chassis somehow became disconected from the railcar, but this is just a guess. What has been included, however, is the hooks these chains would connect to on the railcars, just have a look. on www.one35th.com , under the K5 (E) article, are some very useful line drawings from the original plans by Krupp, in one of these, the rear chain is visible in the intended position. Another overlooked detail is a section of rubber tubing i beleive to be for transfering hydraulic fluid from the generator car to the gun assembly in order to adjust pressure in the hydraulic cylinder itself. This tube exits the left side of the chassis from the opening in the framework as a section of piping and then the rubber tube is fitted. Here you can see the tube on the present day K5(E) Aust. C version: Click Here The final part left out are (i have no idea what they are used for) these large triangular parts that hang down at an angle from the chassis: Click Here Had the designers taken a look at the actual gun they were replicating, these parts would have been quite obvious.

In the end though, its a beautiful thing to watch this kit come together peice by peice, and extremely rewarding.

hello,

I have the Dragon kit and I am very sorry I didn't buy the Trumpeter kit. The biggest disappointment are the bogies. They are not only missng detail, but also complete parts of the braking system. Even an Eduard PE set could to fix everything.