Talal Mashtoub takes a look at the most recent version of the Hetzer from Academy.

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Thanks!

this is a rebox from 2013. What's the saying , been there done that! I would like for Armorama to review their Review policy. Just a throught, not saying good or bad. Just saying armorama needs to be more hands on. That's all.

I know. I built this kit myself over two years ago.

Tom, the picture you posted is upside down

If you scroll through all the reviews you will see that this kit despite its age was not reviewed before. In fact it's nice to see one with sprue pictures.

So even though the kit isn't new, the review is. I have the late one and there are more changes between early and late than the gun mantle as in the kit. But it's a nice simple build and works for Girls Und Panzer.

How about a comparison review between Dragon, Italeri, Tamiya, and Academy Hetzers. Also compare prices for value/dollar.

I did a lot of comparing when choosing the kit to get. Supposedly the best kit is Tamiya's. Dragon is second with Academy close behind. Academy has some supposed shape issues and with the new link and length suspension in the latest issues, Italeri is vastly improved but has some really weird bulged road wheels.

For me the best value is the Academy as it can be found for under $20. Italeri is way over priced and if you find an old one with the vinyl track you have to add the expense of completely replacing the suspension as it dates from the time of "can't see it, no detail"

Tamiya is a better value than Dragon as all around. Tamiya kits are so beautifully molded and engineered whereas the Dragon is one of their first from when they finally started getting things right ( I guess you could call it late Imperial Period, pre-Smart-kit maybe we should date Dragon kits like Chinese Imperial Dynasties)

And we forgot the Eduard kit.

We'd love to have such a review! All we need is a volunteer to write it...

All the reviews here are by volunteers so we can only publish what we are sent. And many are where somebody has pulled a kit from their own stash, rather than a manufacturer's free new sample of the latest release, so we get a mixed bag of old and new kits popping up in the "to be published" queue. I view it as all good, especially if somebody kindly posts a review of an oldie that I've been thinking about buying, so I can see what's inside before I part with cash. Sure, they may have had detailed magazine articles on that kit back in the day, but who has such a back-catalogue of old magazines to refer to?

Gave my nephew one of these last Christmas and was reasonably satisfied with the detail provided. Me personally, I liked that he was happy and that it was modestly priced only made me smile more. Going to have to dig through the stash some day soon (?) and see if I can do a build review on something older and ignored.