I just finished consrtuction of DML's 1/144 Leopold. It's a very big gun in a very little space. I was disappointed in the fact that there is little or no bolt or panel detail on the gun carriage, but the carriage trucks ( the 2 end sections with the rail wheels ) are sufficiently detailed. The gun crew, although molded in vinyl, are well detailed for this scale. I had some fit problems with the box construction of the carriage. The side sections seemed to be slightly too long to fit in its frame of top, bottom, and ends, and caused some bowing at the center which required clamps to hold it all together while the glue dried. The box cover claims easy assembly, but , while some of the parts are numbered, nothing is numbered in the sometimes not-too-clear instructions. Most of the pieces are loose and everything comes in a compartmented vacu-formed tray which I found too radical for my liking. I'd rather have old-fashioned sprues. There are both black and white printed decals, but only a sand and brown camo scheme is illustrated using the white markings. No history or stats are provided concerning the gun. There is also some PE, but the pieces are very small and fiddly. Some of the PE seem intended to replace original plastic pieces, but the vague instructions don't state whether any cutting or dicarding of parts are required. I just glued the PE parts ( 2 small platforms ) on top of their original plastic parts which gave the surface detail with the support of the plastic beneath. The whole model comes on a length of track with two turn-outs.
Up close the model could have used some more detailing - from a couple of feet distance it looks pretty good; even impressive.
Has anyone else built this kit or has comments on it?