Dragon will soon release a follow up to their ''Smart Kit'' Panther G. This one includes the option to have a full set of steel road wheels.

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

About the steel wheels, these were indeed first designed for the Panther-II.

Subsequently, these same wheels were used on a series of Tiger-E and all of the Tiger-B.

The short production run of Panther-Gs with these wheels was done after trials with the wheels fitted to a Panther-D chassis.

However, in use it turned out that the wheels led to trackteeth braking off, so a full implementation into production was then postponed.

With the upcoming Panther-F, and the decision to outfit ALL tanks with steel wheels, a solution was sought for the Panther.

This was under development, and consisted of a new, externally mounted suspension and a new, double link track with a single central guide tooth without a lightening hole. A drawing of the inside of this track can be found in Spielberger's Panther und seine Abarten. The external suspension is the one that was designed for the E-50/75.

About the kit, this will without a doubt be one for the Panther buffs, as it is another variant that makes for a "unique" vehicle.

Luckily DML has made the dimensions of the steel wheels correct, the older Tamiya steel wheel Panther had wheels the same diameter as the rubber rimmed ones, while these should be smaller, Steel wheels were 800mm, rubber rimmed 860mm in diameter.

thx for the review, jim.
thx for the clarification, herbert.

did dml really include these marking options? hopefully they know better after producing so many german subjects.



it should better read
- Pz.Rgt.1, "LAH", La Gleize, Belgium 1944
- Pz.Rgt.2, East Prussia 1945 (winter scheme)
- Pz.Rgt.24, Eilendorf, Germany 1944 (which is also located near Aachen)
- Pz.Rgt.24, Aachen 1944

Patrick,
La Gleize may have just been my typo error, but they did indeed put the umlats on Aachen (at least on the box or instructions).

Jim

PS: Based on some of the other reviews out there I guess they did spell it LaGlieze as well.

jim, typo error just occur. just wanted to be sure about the marking options.
The wrong umlaut in "Aachen" is a little awkward after creating so many german subjects, esspecially the late war ones.

But things happen, we are all just human

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