Peter Ganchev reviews Dragon's Late pattern StuG IV.



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Thanks!

Pete,
Excellent review, very detailed - I think this is the first one I've seen which highlights how many surplus parts you get in a DML kit - in this case nearly half! I wonder how may of those extra parts in the spares box ever get used....
As a footnote; if you are correct and the details put the production date of this vehicle as the last quarter of 1944, the Frundesburg scheme on the instructions is inaccurate. Frundesberg was with Hohenstaufen at Tarnopol in early 1944. The two divisions transferred to Normandy in June, and were retained in the west until the end of 1944 (Hohenstaufen took part in BOB, Frundesberg had been detached from II SS Pz Corps and was in Alsace until Feb 1945). This means that the Tarnopol scheme is a historical impossibility.

Hi Steve and thanks for the positive input. I did have this used/unused maths coming for some time and the kit was the perfect subject to highlight it. I've got a Befehlsjager 38M which has about 35% of the parts not used, but it's an open-topped vehicle - loads of detail goes in the fighting compartment. I guess one can always look in the spares bin to upgrade earlier releases, e.g. Academy's Pz. IV series vehicles, whose roadwheels are half as thin, not talking about the rest of the details and the OVM.


From my reading so far it appears that the flame-damping vertical exhausts were introduced sometime in August 1944. Many more of the Late productions updates were also available in the second half of that year.

I looked up the previous releases during the review and noticed a DML early StuG IV using the second scheme (Elsabeth), can't claim the modeller used kit decals though.

I could be wrong in both counts, and the camo doesn't really matter to me, because I do like the kit details and the way it builds so far (it took a lot less sanding and filing than my recent 1/72 completions). A lot of beautiful 2, 3 and 4 color schemes out there, all I need to do is set my sight on a particular machine and start airbrushing the camo

Steve, can you elaborate on what you mean by "the Tarnopol scheme"? I know that Tarnopol is a location in the Ukraine (today, though it has been part of Poland in the past).

Sorry Bill,
What I meant was that the scheme couldn't be a Frundesberg vehicle - Frundesberg had left Tarnopol months before the vehicle was built!

Thanks.

Note the instructions in this model, there are a few mistakes and showing some parts without numbers

It would be DML without some errors in the instructions.