introduction

Bison Decals is a company that brings out decals for your AFV models. The fun thing is that they don`t bring you regular decals that you often get offered with the kit. Bison Decals is designing their decals from Actual pictures and therefore the result is that you will have the decals at hand to make a fully historically accurate vehicle.

For this particular set Bison used several good WW2 Reference sources. to design the PanzerJäger 1B Decals provided in this set. Reference books such as Squadron/Signal "Panzer Colors" from Bruce Culver and "Leichte Panzers in Action" By Feist Also Concord and Schiffer "Panzer 1" were used as reference for the historically accurate decals.

The Set

The decals come in a sealed transparent bag and when opened it will give you a sheet of Silk Screen printed decals a little over 14,5 Cm wide and approximately 7 Cm high. with decals for 13 Vehicles from different theatres. Also in the bag are 2 Instructions sheets. The first and biggest instructionsheet is the size of an A4 and is folded twice. The outside shows the front with an Image of the PanzerJäger 1 B, Company logo, Some user instructions, The panzer types, the Item # and of course the Internet Address. The backside shows a legend with the decals with numbers on it which correspondent to the drawings on the inside of the instruction sheet and the second instruction sheet. The inside of the Big Instruction sheet shows the line drawings for 7 Vehicles complete with paintcolors, unit information and the location for the decals. The smaller instruction sheet is the size of an A5 and is also folded. The linedrawings are on the outside here. This instruction sheet is showing the line drawings of 6 vehicles.

The Decals

As mentioned above the sheet provides you with the decals for 13 different Panzer 1 variants. In the order as they appear on the decal sheet these are:
- FlakPanzer 1 A - Flak.Abt 614, Russia 1942
- FlakPanzer 1 A - Flak.Abt 614, Russia winter 1941/42 with ammo trailer.
- FlammPanzer 1 A - DAK Africa 1941/42
With the Tristar FlakPanzer 1 A, Which will hopefully coming out very soon, there should definately be a good model to put the decals for the 2 Flakpanzer`s that are delivered with this set. Also Maquette offers a FlakPanzer 1 A which is Kit# MQ03574
The list goes on with:
- Muntions Schlepper 1 B
- Ladungsleger 1 B - Pz.Pi.Abt. (Armoured engineers), 7. Pz.Div. 1940/41
- Ladungsleger 1 B - Pz.Pi.Abt. (Armoured engineers), 1. Pz.Div. 1941/42
The Above mentioned Ladungslegers are not the same vehicle. yes they are constructed on the Panzer 1 B Chassis but the constructions on which they drop the Charge ('Ladung") onto the target are different. The Ladungslegers can be built with the Italeri/Zvezda Panzer 1 B with a Brach Models Conversion on it. The first on the instruction sheet can be made with Brach Models kit# BM032. The second can be made with kit# BM028... Or if you are good at scratchbuilding use the DML Panzer 1 B Kit# 6186 and scratchbuilt the constructions on the back.
Next on the list is:
- SIG 33 Bison 1 B - SIG Kp 706. 1. PzDiv., France 1940
- SIG 33 Bison 1 B - SIG Kp 703. 1. PzDiv., France 1940
Alan provides you with the Bison 1B Kit# AL019 Maquette also brings out a Bison 1 B kit# MQ03508 on which these decals can be added
The last 5 are all PanzerJäger 1B`s:
- PzJäger 1 B - SS - Brigade (Mot) LAH Ukraine 1941
- PzJäger 1 B - Moskow Front, Winter 1941/42
- PzJäger 1 B - Pz.Jg. Abt. 521
- PzJäger 1 B - Pz.Jg.Abt 605. Tripoli, Lybia 1941
- PzJäger 1 B - Pz.Jg.Abt 605. Africa 194/42
The only panzerjager at the moment is the Italeri one which is a bit old and based on the old Panzer 1B chassis from Italeri/Zvezda. There are a huge load of Photoetch sets available for the kit most of them from Aber. OF course you could give a go at scratchbuilding it by using the Dragon Panzer 1 B DAK version with Tropical fitiings Kit# 6207 and using the gun from the Italeri kit and do some serious scratchbuilding.

Conclusions

Well it seems that Bison Decals has done their Homework very well again. I have checked my own references for the Panzerjäger and the other variants available in this set and I actually could not spot any mistake. All the decals are completely historically accurate and good in size too. Also the additonal information you get in the instructions sheets is very usefull as that is exactly the colors that belong to the decal and the theatre it was performing in. The quality and the detail of the reproduced decals are of a very high standard and will look very good when added.
In my opinion this is a usefull set and a good addition for the PanzerJäger 1 builder but also for the scratchbuilder who is looking for the correct decals to finish the Ladungsleger 1 (which was my case actually been looking around for the right decals for a while.) and not to mention the FlakPanzer 1 which will give you some unique Models.
Again Bison Decals have a winner here