Randy Harvey reviews Dragon's PaK 43/3 L/71 mit Behelfslafette.



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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Thanks for the review, Randy. I've had this kit in the stash for a couple of months now (since it was first released) and it does look very nice. As the review states, there is a fair amount of clean up to do but nothing too complex (as opposed to their sFH 18 - lots of seam lines on that one!)

Rob

I'd never heard of this piece or seen any photos of it in action before. How many were made and how much service did it see?

That's a tough question to answer. Photos of Late War ordnance is harder to find than EW. I guess the Germans didn't have time fighting for their collective lives to take many photos. Most of the ones I've seen of LW AFVs are captured or "Panzer wrecks." Wiki Germany says 2,098 of the PAK 43s were built, and 1,403 of the PAK 43/41. They did not distinguish how many were put into various AFVs and how many were stand-alone like this one.

Here are a few pics of this particular weapon:









This is ALL I've been able to find online. Wish I could get more...


Rob

Don't know exactly how many of these were made and, as Bill states, it would be difficult to tell especially for these guns as they were 'hybrids' really. Regarding the service they saw, all I remember reading (somewhere) is that they were used at the very end of the war (1945) and that some of them were positioned along the Rhine (sp?) as allied forces advanced toward Berlin.

Rob

Nice review Randy of an AT gun I never knew existed and I consider myself to somewhat of a student of that type of thing.
Thank you,
Shaun

You're welcome Rob. I enjoyed doing the review. Thank you for providing the pictures.




You're welcome Shaun and thank you. I had never heard of this artillery piece myself. It is definitely an odd one.


Thank you Bill for providing the production numbers. I should have added that to my review but I didn't think of it. That is something that I will keep in mind for my next review.

Thank you everyone for your interest and for your help.

HARV

Looking at the small amount of new parts, this kit was almost impossible for DML NOT to make. Behelfslaffette from the Flak 88mm kit, JagdPanther Pak 43/41 gun, limbers from the Flak 36.

The first pic of the gun is nice, with the upside down Topfblende, it even looks like it makes sense, as it will deflect incoming shots even more away from the gun mount. Shots striking the upper part would also still miss any parts. For the crew the Topfblende would make little difference, either upside down or normally mounted.