History

Designed and built by Krupp AG to compete with the Rheinmetall 7.5 cm Pak 40, the Pak 41 was intended from the onset to take advantage of the Gerlich principle to increase shot velocity. With this principle, the gun delivered a higher muzzle velocity and therefore greater penetration in relation to its size. Compared to the PaK 38 and the PaK 40, the appearance was long, low, and sturdy.

This model features several novelties for the time such as: special ammunition with tungsten core, barrel split into three distinct sections, the attachment of the split trail legs and solid rubber tires directly connected to the gun shield to save weight and the gun cradle set inside a special ball mount attached to the gun shield.

Due to the shortage of tungsten, only 150 Pak 41's would ever be produced and a small number of Pak 41's were converted to accept 7.5 cm Pak 40 barrels and components. A small number were mounted on halftracks and used as lightly armored tank destroyers also.

Review

The first impression of this ACE kit from the outside of the box is that it’s an easy kit. The kit is packaged in a sturdy box with a nice art box. It has two sprues with 38 pieces in hard plastic, without ejector pin marks and correct details for this scale.

In the first sprue we can find some small pieces, ammunition and packages, while the second holds the main parts of the gun. It would be interesting to see some figures included because the kit hasn't any.

The main problem of the kit is the burrs present in all the pieces although they are easy to remove without any damage to the pieces.

The instruction booklet is presented only by a single page and all instructional images are clear. The part number layout is simple and easy to follow on the instruction sheet as well as the sprues. A color guide with the three possible schemes is printed on the back of the instruction booklet.

Conclusion

This is my first ACE kit and, although it needs extensive clean-up and reworking of parts, the model can be completed very fast. It’s a very nice and interesting model for artillery fans in 1/72 scale.

References

Wikipedia article