history

The 2.8cm Schwere Panzerbuchse 41 was a result of squeeze-bore experimentation in Germany. It was best described as a small, light weight anti-tank gun as it was mounted on a wheeled carriage. The weapon had a tapered bore which reduced the soft metal jacket of the projectile from 28mm to 20mm. The tapered barrel construction resulted in very high muzzle velocity of 1,400m/s and at 100 meters up to 75mm of vertical armor plate could be penetrated. A total of 94 were tested in 1940 and the weapon was put into production as the 2.8cm s.Pz.B.41 early in 1941. Production continued until 1943 with a total of 2,797 weapons being completed. The length of the gun was 171.4 cm and it had a combat weight of 229 kg. Its elevation was -5 degrees and 45 degrees. It had a 90 degree traverse and had a crew of five. It was used by the army and paratroops and was also mounted on Sd.Kfz.250 half tracks and Sd.Kfz.221 armored cars. It was expensive to produce because of the high quality metals needed for the barrel and was considered obsolete by 1942.

the kit

The German 2.8cm s.Pz.B.41 Anti-Tank Gun Set is a 1/35 plastic kit from Bronco Models. The kit number is CB-35034 and it is able to be built in one of three versions. The three versions are the “standard version”, the “standard version with trailer” and the “initial version with cart”. The kit comes in an open ended type of box. It is the typical type of thin cardboard used for kit boxes. The top of the box has art work of the 2.8cm s.Pz.B.41 Anti-Tank Gun. The bottom has detailed art work of different parts of the kit. All of the sprues are sealed within clear plastic bags. The instruction sheet is packaged loose.

THE INSTRUCTION SHEET

The kit comes with an eleven page instruction sheet. The instruction sheet is printed on magazine type of paper which makes it very durable making it handy for future reference. The instruction sheet is laid out very nicely and the assembly steps are very clear and easy to follow. Another detail I like is that the nine assembly icons are shown and explained and shown in color throughout the instruction sheet. The instruction sheet is printed in three languages, English, German, and Chinese.

The instruction sheet is laid out as follows.

- Front page - Color art work of the gun and a brief history of it.
- Page 1 – Assembly icon instructions and a painting guide.
- Page 2 – Sprue and PE drawings.
- Pages 3 through 9 – The assembly steps. Assembly amounts to a total of nine steps.
- Pages 10 and 11 – Color prints of the three different versions.

There were two things about the instruction sheet that I didn’t like. One was that there isn’t any type of guide for using photo-etched brass for first time users. I feel that this is something that should be included with every kit that has photo-etched brass detailing parts. The other thing I didn’t like is that there is no decal placement guide. I had to learn where the decals go by looking at the color prints and figuring it out. Even though there are only two decals it would have been nice to have a decent placement guide.

THE DECALS

The kit comes with one sheet of water slide type decals. There are only two decals and they are information markings for the tops of the two ammunition cans. The decals are small and look clear and crisp.

THE PAINTING GUIDE

On page one of the instruction sheets there is a paint reference guide included. It lists four different manufacturers and cross references for ten different colors.

The manufacturers shown are:
- Gunze Sangyo
- Hobby Color
- Humbrol
- Tamiya

The colors listed are:
- Steel
- Red Brown
- Silver
- Flat White
- Dark Yellow
- Semi-gloss Black
- Tyre Black
- German Grey
- Flat Black
- Wood brown

THE SPRUES AND PARTS

The kit comes with eleven sprues of tan styrene with a total of 194 parts and one fret of photo-etched brass with 23 detailing parts. The instruction sheet states that there are two frets of photo-etched brass. The kit only comes with one and that is all that is needed. The styrene parts have nice clean detailing and there is not an excessive amount of seam lines and very little, if any, flash. There are several molding pins that will need to be removed. There are very few knock out marks and the ones that I did find are in locations where they will not be visible once the kit is completed. There is what I would call a normal amount of sprue attachment points for all of the pieces. The sprues are all identified by a letter and the individual pieces are all identified by a number. The photo-etched brass detailing parts have nice crisp detailing and they have what I would consider the normal amount of fret attachment points. The pieces are all identified by numbers.

EXTRA PIECES

(parts box stuff):

You do end up with a few extra pieces that are not needed and that is always a nice bonus in my book as that always helps the spare parts bin grow. Most of the pieces you end up with are extra cart pieces, gun shield and breech pieces and a spare barrel.

CONCLUSION

It isn't what I would call a perfect kit, however it is a very nice product. I would have no hesitation to recommend it to others. Please keep in mind that this in an in-box review and that I have not removed any of the parts and dry fitted them to see how they fit.