Chamberlain & Doyle ( Encyclopedia of German Tanks ) say 100 were converted in 1939.

While Chamberlain & Doyle have given a number of perhaps 100 for these charge-droppers, others say rather smaller numbers actually made it into action... Markus Zollner (Panzerkampfwagen I, Tankograd nr. 4009, 2007) is pretty firm about there having been perhaps only 10 of these actually made - although there was apparently a plan to have up to 100. Remarkably, a couple of photos seem to show 5 or 6 in one column - so perhaps 1/2 of the world's total supply! I would recommend the Zollner book for anyone who builds this one - he provides several pictures of these machines in the field... Terry Gander (Panzerkampfwagen I & II, Tanks & Armour, 2006) is a little more generous, and indicates maybe as many as 20 were so converted. Not saying that these more-recent pubs are likely to be more accurate - but there does seem to be some uncertainty out there - surprise, surprise! Regardless of how many were actually built and used, I can pretty much guarantee that at least one styrene version will get built and shown! I've been eying doing this in scratch for a while, and now it looks like I'll be able to shake one right out of the box! Bob

Hmmm, interesting release. For some time now I had my eye on the LeadWarrior conversion set but kept holding off as its almost all brass tube + PE. Any other info on how Dragon approached it? Cheers, Tat

C & D say that each Panzer Division was supposed to get 10 , to be used in the Pioneer Battalion . There were two styles , one that carried the charge over the turret , and dropped it to the rear , and one like the Dragon kit that could drop the charge in front of the tank . Two very different mounts , E of GT"s shows a picture of each type.

Jim; Yeap! That bit has echoed around for a while - even shows up in a couple of the Concord Military series where folks talk about T,O, & E. I would readily accept that the Germans had proposed, even planned, for such an eventual disposition! But what C&D did was report the plan, and not it's execution or implementation. The best plans, of course, last intact only until one meets the enemy! In the case of "demolition panzers", the "enemy" was largely a matter of this was not really the best solution to the perceived need. I'm reminded here of the similar case of that "muni-schlepper IA" which was recently kitted by Tristar... seemed like a great idea to take these tiny, obsolete Pz. 1A out of front-line service and convert them to ammunition tractors for panzer-divisions. Almost as soon as the first few hit those divisions... those guys said, "nah. We don't want these." and the few made went instead to the StuG companies "while supplies lasted". And conversion stopped. One could also invoke that fine-looking little Flakpanzer IA in this vein... Those two designs you mentioned: - the first was the prototype design with a ramp reaching up over the turret: the crew positioned the box-charge at the top of this, backed the tank to the target, and let the item slide down and drop off the end. IF what some folks (including those refs above) say is true, only a couple of these ramp-types were made. And then they went off to that other design - the one kitted by the D.... The reasoning for changing over is fairly apparent - the ramp would both more-hinder the turret and be hard to load, and likely also could not effectively reach or position that charge onto something like a low bunker roof... The boom design created a slightly greater reach, enabled the charge to be more-readily placed onto a bunker, and was easier to load - being as the charge-box was out where folks could get to it. The turret was also free to swing around and add whatever it could to the moment. Or at least so I would expect. In the end, these devices were not very satisfactory - it required a tank crew to back up to a target, where visibility was, to say the least, the pits, and where the armor was least. That, and the charge size was extremely limited. This said, there are some records that these were used - even into the early Russia campaign. Robo-bomb tanks (Borgwards, Goliaths, later, the Springer) could all do the ground job much better, and could carry bigger charges. And expose no crew while doing the job! But it WAS real, however many or few actually made it into service, and now the D has produced a kit of it - so I'm pretty excited to see what this turns out to be! I'm really hoping that they have done a pretty fair job of the basic kit. Bob

Pretty small vehicle but very unique! ~ Jeff