Hi, Was just up doing my weekly visit to my local hobby store and came away with two more of Dragon's 1/72 scale "Armor Pro" vehicles today.

One is the Tiger I late. In addition to having the molded on Zimmeri coating in all the appropriate places, it also has PE exhaust shields and a great selection of decals for it. (I can see a couple more of these in the future I think.)

The second is their StuG IV late, which, on initital inspection, looks ever bit as good as the other kits in this series of Braille scale kits. (Don't you just love that initial opening of a new model box and going through all those sprues full of new parts?)

The store also had some of Dragon's M1's in this same series, but since I'm not all that interested in the modern day armor I was able to let temptation pass me by. Of course this is this week and who knows what I'll be tempted to get next week. Ha, ha!

Put my name down for one of the E-100s and Hornisse in this 1/72 series as well when they can get them in here the future.

And this isn't to mention a couple of 1/35 scale kits I just 'have to have.' Am I addicted or what!

Take care, Sgirty

I've just started the stug 4 and am adding the edwurd kit to it. IT is a great little kit right out of the box.
If you would liek a fun kitbash, the revel of germany tiger lower hull works perfectly with dragon series. What you get is a better drive sprocket and link and lenght tracks. One of my super builds (i can do about 5 a year) is going to be a strum tiger in 1/72 with the full works.
Bill

The Revell StuG IV is one of the earlier kits first released by Matchbox and Monogram in the mid-90s. Very poor kit and although it had link & length tracks, they are really devoid of any detail. ExtraTech makes a nice set of PE tracks.

If you wan't to build a Stug4 I recommend using Revell Stug4sperstructure and Revell panzer 4 lower hull. Oh, also use the barrel from panzer 4, as the one that comes with the stug has an enormous muzzle brake.

I'm currently working on the dragon stug, here is what i've done so far. I carefully removed the tools to use later, they are nicly detailed and worth keeping. THen i sanded down the fenders to a smooth, uniform thickness and installed the edwurd photoetched fenders for the revel of germany stug kit. Honestly they fit fine with just a little trimming here and there. And they look great. I decided to just apply them over the plastic since i feel tehy would be to brittle to handle if i removed the original kit fenders and substituted them. When i am done you cna judge if i made the right call. I replaced the gun with one from aber, WOW, that is a beauty.
One thing i found is this. THe gun is build og the mallet, barrel, and cradle as a subassembly. This is then slid into postion and glued down. However if you slide it all the way forward the mallet sits way to far forward, creating a 1/2'" gap between the mallet and the rear superstructure. No good, i remounted it and reglued it and now it looks fine.
One note, this kit is very well set up for someone to use the kit supplied tracks (which are great) and the sag method of using pins in predrilled holes.
I will try this on my stug that i am kitbashing from leftovers.

Thats it for now. I'm building more later. I have the 3-7 shift in the alarmroom and i build models when i'm in there. Great job, i get to buiild models at work. YAY> Bill.

I made a paint run to a LHS Saturday and while they didn't have any of the paint I want (Tamiya paint is near impossible for me to get in the Kansas City area for some reason, the racks are there but no one has stock ) they had a nice selection of the new 1/48 Tamiya kits and the Dragon 1/72 stuff and I have to say I was very tempted to buy that Tiger with Zimmerit. After reading this forum today I might just grab the 1/48 Stug and the 1/72 Tiger for something different to build.

Thanks for mentioning the quality of the kits. With the positive comments my arm has now been sufficiently twisted to go buy some :-)

I just got Dragon's StuG IV in the mail yesterday. Superb looking kit. The plastic looks different than eariler Dragon Braille kits. The detail is crisper than Revell kits. They definitely raised the bar here.

This is a much cheaper solution (won mine on eBay for $4) than trying to kitbash a StuG IV using the Revell StuG III and PzKpfw IV. That used to be the most common solution to producing an accurate StuG IV, but the new Dragon kit makes it unnecessary.