This has got to one of the lamest and most bare-faced grabs for cash ever! Wow! A piece of plastic and a few PE plates! Enough to make overlay jaded as to so-called "new releases"! And if the Panther G wasn't a particularly good tank which one exactly was? Oh I'm looking forward to this one!

I think the comet has the strongest claim to being the best overall medium tank of the war, with good overall balance of weight, height, armor, fire power, tactical and strategic mobility, and fits well into logistic constraints. But T-34, comet, and even the Sherman firefly were all substantially better War fighting tanks overall, as opposed to theoretical one-on-one dueling tanks overall, compared to the panther. The panther was a sheer brute force approach to surpassing the spec table attributes of the t-34. It may have surpassed the t-34 in armor and gun power, and roughly equaled it in tactical mobility, but it completely failed to match t34 in strategic mobility, and completely failed in its choice of weight and size to account for the then current logistic reality even in 1943. It was an engineer's tank, not a strategic planner' s tank. As such, it was a fail.

Not to really argue the point, as you do bring up a few interesting ones, but what, exactly, is your background to wield the word "strategic" so devastatingly (and repeatedly) Fireflies were nothing more than a good gun on a truly mediocre tank, Comets were interesting but quickly supplanted by the superlative Centurian, and nothing says "yesterday" so well as being replaced. TheT-34, while a truly well-balanced AFV, was crude and limited which is why the T-54 so quickly replaced it in front-line service. I wonder at your last sentence as to the Panther being "an engineer's tank, not a strategic planner's tank." I think I know what you mean but would enjoy hearing more from you on this. I could truly care less what anyone thinks about any particular tank, but I would like to know more on the "why" side rather than merely the expression of a personal preference bias.

'Strategic' the way I meant it means whether the tank design takes proper account of existing resource and logistic constraints while also possessing adaquate military characteristics so it is well prepared to execute missions which the country's strategy would call for given the realities the country faces. The notion that Sherman is mediocre is nonsense. It is mediocre in its gun power in the original configuration yes. But that is rectified by fitting the 17 pounder. It's tactical mobility is good, and its strategic mobility is excellent. It's armor is quite adaquate considering it is a 30 ton, not a 45 ton, tank. But good weight control contributed to its outstanding strategic mobility by allowing it to operate with existing river crossing equipment, fit well into existing strategic shipment pipeline. The notion that centurion overshadowing comet makes comet less adaquate is very odd. The comet remained in British frontline service to the late 1950s. The face that British tank design continued apace and was making rapid progress does not make each individual step less good relative to its peers. The same also applies to t-34. Yes, t-54 succeeded the t-34 in soviet service shortly after the war, but like the comet, the t-34 remained in soviet service to the end of 1950s. What is not pointed out is the fact the t-54nis also vastly superior to a'ny variant of the panther. The fact that t-34bis succeeded by something vastly superior to the panther hardly suggest t-34 itself was not equal or superior to the panther upon the final analysis.

So to get bach on subject I will be looking for this release. I can upgrade the old night fighting ones I have in the stash with this one.

Couldn't you just make the armour plates from a sheet of styrene, standing off from the tank with plastic rod? Looks pretty easy.

Perhaps, but it probably wouldn't look as "clean" (that is, as if made by a machine or at least to 1:1 tolerances that appear to be perfect in scale) as these parts. I could give it a try, but I already have a large stock of plastic sheet, brass and plastic rod, and nut and bolt details; a NWSL Duplicutter, Chopper, and True-Sander; and full sets of small Imperial and metric drill bits. If you were start from nothing I would say you are looking at about $20 worth of materials and another $150 - $200 for tools if you want everything square, uniform, symmetrical, and straight. Most importantly, doing it yourself doesn't make money for DML. THAT fact, and that alone, is why they made the kit. KL

You really do like pontificating, don't you? End of the day I'd rather be sitting in a late Panther G than anything else offered in WW2 that you mentioned. Personal survivability seems to loom large on that one. Either way, the point was that this Dragon kit release offers a pretty minor feature for fairly weighty cash. The rest is all "he said -she said" in terms of the actual AFVs mentioned.

Just to chime in, as an engineer, saying the panther was an engineers tank couldn't be further from the truth. Bad engineering was the reson for the unreliable transmision, and other problems. Just by looking at it it is clear it was designed by a comitee that was trying to shoehorn as many different interests into the design. Which is why it needed several iterations to mature into the ausf G. If anything the T-34 was the engineers tank, a purpose built machine for the battlefield of the time, maximizing all aspects with the resources available, and with very little regard for crew comfort. Overengineering things is bad and engineers are taught not to do it. So overengineering is usually a sign someone who is not an engineer did it.