Ok - so out of the last 4 Dragon 1/72 German armor kits I've blind purchased, only ONE (Pz.III Ausf. M) had the separate wheels/sprockets/DS tracks

Anyone build those to any degree of satisfaction? I like to mask/spray my roadwheels spearately.

Is there a way to know which are the type of kit i actually want??

Brian,

The Dragon "cheapifying" of their 1/72 scale kit suspensions is fairly recent. If you check out the "Reviews" on Armorama you can customize the way they are displayed so all 1/72 scale kits appear together as in Dragon Reviews. MOST kits reviewed in the list have the more detailed suspensions with DS tracks and ALL of the kits with tracked suspensions reviewed by me have them.

Cheers,
tread_geek(Jan)

Ok so the ones you reviewed are only the one piece tracks/wheels? or vice versa

Sorry if I wasn't clear but I meant that the previous part of the statement about "detailed suspensions" applied to my reviews also.

P.S.- As in Dragon Panzer IV F2/G.



Cheers,
Jan

Ahhh thanks! ---- I can't seem to find any of the Pz IV chassis based kits anywhere -aside from Dragon, is there any other quality Pz IV in 1/72?

Dragon has the Pz IV, Hummel Early, Hummel Late, Hornise, Nashhorn to name a few. Revell also has a number of Pz IV variants but they all have length and link tracks. Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Jan

Brian, please take a look at the review here
StuG III Ausf F
which includes the method I used for dealing with these one piece track units. It's a pretty simple method that is probably quicker than separate wheels, even if the results aren't as satisfactory due to the limited detail on the track and idlers in particular.

Nice - I will check out! Right I cant seem to find any of the PZ IV Dragons WITHOUT the one piece tracks

I'll prob try the one piece kits I have at some point but --- Revell of Germany STUG IV's have those flat tracks/single roadwheels so aftermarket rubber or resin tracks with teeth wont align correctly

I just grabed the PZ III L & N (looks like they are same as the Ausf M I just built)

Also, those familiar with Dragon, It always seems like I'm filling more gaps, messing with fiddly joints.... is it just me? Always turns out pretty nice but the instructions are wrong sometimes and ambiguous

Remember that you can see the details of each Dragon kit on their own website, easiest way to find it is to enter the serial number into the search box on their front page.

It looks like it might be the case that the new kits with the one piece tracks have the new style orange boxes, like this below instead of the old yellow ones.





Dragon's instructions are certainly notorious for containing errors and multiple components sitting on top of arrows that point vaguely in the direction of the thing they are to be glued to, followed by no more drawings of that part of the model, so you can't see exactly where it is meant to go.

Having said that, providing you can work out the location, I've found the fit is normally good, and haven't found too much need to use filler, as far as I can recall (the Panzerfahre had oversize holes on the deck however). They can be fiddly, because of things like headlamps that locate into the merest of indentations, instead of into a proper hole, or wheels that locate into shallow or oversize holes, so that both wobble around and need to be held in the correct position while setting.

I see that Modelcollect are about to release a PzKpfwIV Ausf H, so I suspect that will lead to other variants from them, and should provide a high quality alternative with proper wheels etc.

You will have to look around but they ARE out there. As a matter of fact, Dragon USA has the Pz IV F2/G on sale at this time. This is the kit I reviewed years ago and can be found at Dragon Pz IV.



Brian, YOU are going to have to do some research. The Revell Pz IVH (kit 03119) and earlier releases HAVE a full proper suspension and Link and Length tracks. There where a few very early subjects released that had the flat tracks and single large road wheels like on their M-60 kits and T-80 kits.




Again, read the reviews and you will see that these points are generally mentioned. Trust me when I say Dragon and their instruction irregularities are a common joke.

The ULTIMATE place to research most 1/72 kits is Henk of Holland site. Often available will be instruction scans and in some cases sprue shots. Just pick a manufacturer and scroll through the listings to find a kit you are interested in.

EDIT: The Panzer IV the Dragon site lists is sadly the new one as the one I reviewed is kit 7359 and not the one listed by Matthew (kit 7549).

Dragon still list that one too, even though it is probably out of production, so perhaps get it while you can, if you can...

From the 7359 kit, BTW, it's on Backorder at DragonUSA.

Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.F2(G)-13 by Jan Etal, on Flickr

Pz IVH kit 7497 (from Henk's site)

Of course I ordered 2x immediately - ugh

Need to cancel --- I already have that terrible orange boxed one