I am looking for the turret and gun assembly from a Wirbelwind for my next build.

I know the Dragon kits are probably the most accurate and detailed, but I'm looking for the next best alternative.

I plan on using metal barrels and some PE, but is the Tamiya Wirbelwind pretty accurate?

That's an old kit, so no not terribly accurate. It will look the part on your shelf once done, but the most obvious is the lack of zimmerit. The gun is crude compared to more recent kits. I myself plan to replace mine the second I find a good deal on the Dragon kit.

Have you considered using the towed version of the gun itself and adapting it? I feel certain either Dragon or Trumpeter sells it.

The old Tamiya kit - specifically the turret - is actually pretty accurate in both size and shape, and, with a little detailing, the gun / mount is pretty good (but it DOES want some detailing - and metal barrels do wonders). The biggest problems with the Tamiya turret are those associated with styrene molding: the walls are a bit thick (so thin the top edges!) and there are a few locating pins that could just be removed (requiring some extra care to assemble the turret top and bottom together) - they are visible when one looks inside, so...

As for the Pz IV hull: Some had zimm, some not. But, if you want it, you'll have to add it. Other than the zimm, the obvious failings of the old Tamiya wirbel lie in those rubberband tracks - I recommend swapping in some Dragon sprockets and link tracks, or some other set - and of course one could replace the roadwheels (but the Tamiya items are not bad...) - and in the OVM stuff... So add some detail on the hull,add some zimm if you like, replace some ovm with better bits, add a nice tow-cable and detail that exhaust system a bit.

I did all of the above to the 1973 Tamiya Wirbel... detailed the guns and turret, put in metal barrels, did a DIY spackle zimm job, added some hull and ovm details, swapped in Dragon tracks and sprockets, detailed the spare-barrel boxes and mounts, and... It came out looking very nice indeed(at least in my opinion! ). And it was a fun build, too!




Cheers!

Bob PS: The scruffy "whitewash" job depicts a crude broom-on whitewash - I actually made a straw broom and included that, a funky whitewash bucket, and several dirty bedsheets draped over this in its final display incarnation.