Bill Cross reviews Dragon's British 25-pdr Field Gun Mk. II w/Limber & Crew.



Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Thanks Bill ,

That was a good review.

I still think DML did the right thing to bring out the early version with the crew.
Even with the higher price tag the detail of the 25 pounder is by far the best offering than the 30 something Tamiya kit

More than likely having announced the latest release of the Sexton they may be looking at a later variant 25 pounder as well .

Thanks
Michael

Sorry Michael I am in the process of doing a build review of both the Bronco and DML offering and the Bronco kit is much better. Both kits have faults and room for improvement, but the only place I see DML beating Bronco is that they have the hand spike correctly placed when the gun is in a firing position and have included the pick axe head correctly placed. The DML kit also requires far less ability to build being a 2 or 3 day kit build with out too much effort. The Bronco kit is a much more involved build that will test your abilities and eye sight but will build into in my opinion a finer looking product.

As I said earlier there is plenty of room for the after market suppliers to add extra goodies for both kits. In Bronco's case they need two photo etched brackets for the hand spikes and ideally two separate hands spikes, it will also need a pick axe head with the bracket details. Both kits have not supplied the ground plate locking handles as an open or closed offering and from memory both have supplied the handles as they would look when the ground plate was stored (from memory) they also need the 2 lifting chains for these handles in both cases.

For me the biggest let down of the DML product is the inability to show the breach in an open position as the barrel locator fills the void where the shell would be placed. The sliding breach opening handle on the DML kit is shown in the same position for an open or closed breach and locating lugs on the rear of the handle would require some filling on the breach and minor surgery on the handle, however as I said the open breach on the DML kit exposes a plugged breach.

The DML kit is by far a much easier kit to build and will I suspect attract some for that facet alone and I will not criticise any one for that reason. The Bronco kit is much more involved and should be the better looking of the two models. Included is a full load of ammunition and provides Anti tank, HE and possibly smoke (which I need to check into more). The No 27 ammunition trailer from Bronco is a much better product as every tray can be opened, stacked, or however you wish to display it also the handles for moving the trailer by hand can be opened or closed and are accurately rendered, unfortunately DML has these handles as a single moulding in the open position which would be accurate for an in action setting only

It could be argued that with the DML kit you get a gun crew in the box which is a valid point and despite some who feel the crew is overly (Buff) I think they are a good product even with the helmets looking as if some surgery will be required. The problem with the gun crew is that the kit is designed for the desert war and the gun crew is shown in a 1944 gun drill positions, its minor and I am sure will not matter to most. The biggest issue between the 2 products is I am afraid price with the Bronco product now being £8 to £10 cheaper than the DML product in the UK (rest of the world may vary) and for that price difference I will get my own gun crew.

Thanks for the review Bill. Given the price tag I'll stick with the Brocno offering which gives more finish options.

It is alwasy good to see choice available on the market and I'm sure the DML kit will appeal to many.

It will be interesting to see if Bronco produce a crew or crews for their version, they certainly seem to be moving in the right direction with a 17pdr and Bofors crew now available.

Cheers

Al

Thanks Darren,

It will be interesting to see the comparisons between the 2 kits .

I have not ordered my 25 pounder gun yet. This review has made my decision to lean toward the Bronco gun .

Michael

Michael it really does depend on what you want for your money as both kits are reasonably accurate in what they include with DML being easy and quick to build at the expense of detail, where as Bronco has so many parts (3 PE frets for starters) That it is a very involved build that really will put you to the test. As someone who was really looking forward to this release from DML I am disappointed in the contents. Due to my workload I aim to have the DML build submitted for Sunday 19th the Bronco kit will take considerably longer.

Bronco have already released a crew

I picked a set up in my LHS on friday- they're really good

Thanks for reminding me Pat, I knew they were working on one but hadn't realised the set had been released. Will we see a desert crew being the question?

Cheers

Al