Andy Renshaw reviews Dragon’s new Flakpanzer Ostwind.



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Thanks!

Thanks for the review Andy, very fair I thought. Also poses some interesting questions about accuracy. To be frank, I'm starting to tire of the same old same old from Dragon. The same mistakes and inaccuracies in the instructions, the plethora of sprues from other kits - I note one sprue has only 2 parts used out of over a dozen. We are paying good money for a lot of plastic we won't be using. Don't get me wrong, on the whole I think Dragon make excellent kits, but they do seem prone to slip into a sort of lethargy occasionally. I find myself more and more lately turning to other manufacturers whose kits aren't up to the same standard of moulding, but who are producing fresh subjects.

Believe it or not, doing this actually keeps the kits cheaper. The amount of plastic doesn´t add more expense ... New layouts for tooling or re-toolings does add expense. You can bet your bottom dollar, Dragon are not giving away anything free here.


You are not alone here .... I think I have about 12 different pzr IV based kits ... theres only so many I want/need.
Dragon appear to go a little more main stream, so thats why releases like the stuff from Mirror models is more interesting for me just now. Same goes for their figures ... we are all aware that Germans sell, but it must come to a point that this market is saturated, and if we are not there yet, its not far away. I see many old and treasured figure sets for sale, but nobody wants them. Even when they are cheap, when post is added they´re not worth it anymore. And anybody who has limited space, this becomes an issue in itself.

Steve;

Hi! Yes, there does seem to be a certain smell of "same old" in many Dragon kits - you do see the same old sprues time and again, but almost always in different combinations then seen in previous boxes . But this seems to me nothing remotely worth complaining about. I personally prefer that manufacturers act efficiently and reuse established sprues... this reduces the time needed to bring out new kits (but of course also leads to families, like Dragon StuG III and Tiger I variants, which can get a little boring...).

This "Ostwind" is a prime example. You get all manner of "old" sprues - just re-combined and beefed-up with a few new-tool bits to give us a genuinely FRESH subject (there being no other modern kit of the Ostwind, I would have to say that this counts as being fresh and new - a modern state-of-art kit of this beast). Yes, you could assemble the kit from sprues taken from prior boxes - that's what Dragon has done. But so what? Those sprues are mostly state-of-art, and it mimics the real world - Germany took off-the-shelf prior bits, and assembled the stuff into a new turret to make this animal, and Dragon does this in kit form. What's not to like about that?

There are other complaint-worthy issues - Dragon seems to forever suffer difficulties in putting together instructions, and, as old sprues are re-used, and some contain "original" errors, these errors get promulgated. But at least many know about some of these errors and can make corrections. And of course, neither Dragon nor anyone else has mastered getting kits completely accurate. My hypothesis is that whenevr that happens, the world as we know it will end. The Maya goofed a little on that end-of-time thing...

Now, if we were paying our money for weight-of-plastic, I would wax rancorous about the over-supply of extras, but we don't, so I cannot. It's really up to you whether you want to actually keep all the excess stuff - some of us pack-rat types do (me) - but I doubt Dragon would charge less for a kit with "only" what bits are needed! Too bad, but it's plainly cheaper to simply let us modelers toss - or not - the un-needed extra bits than it is to either clip sprues or retool them. But of course it's only my opinion!

So I'll suppose that this new Ostwind has some issues. It's worlds away from the previous kits of same and I'll be glad to give it a whirl and maybe even try and fix some problems along the way! And I'll hope the D just keeps on putting out new kits, even if often over-bloated with used sprues, et al.

Bob

what is the problem with radioman hatch? according to latest Nuts and Bolts it was not relocated, so Dragon is correct. We had a discussion about that on ML and Tom Cockle said that Dragon delayed their release for almost 2 years waiting for that updated information.

When you are talking about hatch problem I assume you are referring to information on PMMS that is 2 years old?

Good Morning, Gentlemen!
I am about 2/3 through building the kit for a magazine. All in all it goes toghether very nicely, but as quite correctly mentioned by Andy Renshaw, this kits seems to be an amalgam of late and early vehicles. I do not claim to be an expert of Pz.IVs and their conversions. Simply speaking I could not find any proof that the vehicle Dragon makes you build according to the instructions did ever take to the road. (I did not go to extraordinary lengths to find some, either.) However, I am certain that the kit provides about 90% of the parts necessary to build a "proper & confirmable" Ostwind. To do so just discard of the assembly sheet and DIY.
Not having built a Pz.IV by Dragon before, I was not aware about the mounting gaps for the Schuerzen at the rear. I pretty much found out about them by the time I was ready to paint and was a bit annoyed that the instructions did not ask to fill them at the time of construction.
Having built the kit as per instructions, I seem to have something that will pass for an Ostwind to everyone, but a specialist for the subject. Standing in that corner, I will paint the beast in one of the unknown-unit-in-unknown-location-at-an-unspecified-point-in-time camo schemes, two of which are given in the paint instructions.

Oh- and save yourself the expenses for Eduard's 36099 - Flakpanzer "Ostwind" PE set. It does not fit the kit at all. Except of the tool brackets and the front mudguards, you can't use anything from the set to aid your Ostwind.

I think it is a nice kit for the sake of model building, but it is not, what the modelling historian will look for.

That's my 0,02USD.

Cheers,
Guido

there is no evidence. There are only pictures of prototype vehicle and then one rear view picture where the 2 man stand in front of it. The kit is done according to factory records.

Thank's for the hint, Roman.
Can these records be found somewhere public?
Cheers,
Guido

don't think so. check updated Nuts and Bolts.

mmmmmmm......interesting!

OK, reading some of what was posted and doing some more searches, I may have to revise my review a bit.

maybe dragons "shortcut" was to not revise the box CAD images!

update cumming soon..

Gentlemen-

Here is a progress pic of the Ostwind.



As you can see the hatch for radio- man is not in line with the driver's hatch. Once you haven given up on the historical accuracy it is a fun build, indeed!

Cheers,
Guido

Accurate or not, it looks fine. Hard-edged camo?

A blend of feathered and hard-edged schemes. Like I said above: I chose an unkown-unit-at-unknown-location-at-an-unspecified-time. The camo is inspired by one of the camo schemes given in the Dragon instruction to which there isn't any more backround than there is to the vehicle given in this kit. It remided me very much of the disruptive camos used by several navies. It's going to look nice once weathered, I am sure.
It's a fun build!
Guido

That's for sure, and all that matters!

It came out really nice



Cheers,
Guido

Looks great! Do you have more pictures?

I'll submit pictures soon!
Cheers,
Guido

Good use of the MiniArt/MB figures!

Thanks, Bill!