I didn’t buy the Dragon Sd. Kfz. 166 Stu.Pz.IV “Brummbar” because it was pretty. Some armored vehicles have a kind of menacing grace – Panthers, T-34s and all modern battle tanks come to mind. The Brummbar (a nickname maybe meaning Grizzly Bear, or Grumbler, or Growler given to the machine by the allies: the Germans called it Stupa – short for Stu.Pz) was a self propelled gun based on the Pz IV chassis for heavy-weight direct fire infantry support. It has the grace and finesse of a big skin-head carrying a tire iron. (I think it was the kind of thing that Vader’s engineers would have created: the ISU-152 below is another.)
It did have several virtues however. It was on uber-sale. And it was a no joke Dragon model with Magic Tracks. Important reasons all. Since I started modeling about a year back (after a 50 year break – literally) I did four tanks and had a grand time. (The first three were older, simple Tamiya kits – very glad I started simple.) So I like tanks. And it was clear that serious tank builders bought Dragon kits. I’m not much of a modeler but I was not going to be a wimp so I did too. (Aside from that Dragon had a Pz 38(t) that I absolutely needed.) Now I’ve got six of them. The Brummbar was to be the ice breaker. I assumed it had Dragon’s famous detail and knew there were lots of parts. It had Magic Tracks, which I’d never seen, and Schurzen so I figured that if the individual tracks were a problem I could figure something out and hide the disaster with the Schurzen. Then some helpful souls on this board said a mid-production Brummbar also needed Zimmerit – another new feature. The result is below. Those with nothing to do productive to do are invited to share in the impressions of an apprentice armorholic on Dragon kits and coming to grips with serious AFV modeling.
-
Parts. Lots of them. One review said 540: another over 600. A lot intended for other versions, but still a lot. I found that at least for this stage of life I do not want a kit with more parts than that. This dawned on me about half way through so I was smart enough to “button up” the buggy dispensing with a couple of steps. The construction was not boring, but I had definite project fatigue and started thinking too much about what was next. That’s a valuable lesson learned. Doubt I’ll be getting Dragon’s 350 scale Scharnhorst.
-
Magic Tracks. They were hard, although now that I understand Karl Logan’s article about them, I think a second crack will go better. Fortunately I don’t really mind repetition (I like doing road wheels and listening to Chopin – they fit for some reason). The kind of tricky installation stuff was good for a couple of ulcers though. To be honest, however, when I looked at the one side that actually worked quite well, I couldn’t say to myself they were worth it. Even mild weathering is going to assault fine detail, and track sag can be mimicked pretty well with a pin vice and bits of paper clips. I may not be alone in view. Dragon must figure allied armor fans are softies because they’ve had rubber (or new “DS”) one piece tracks for some time. Now, several of their new big ticket German and Russian items are coming with DS tracks or in the case of my Dragon PV IV, both DS and MT. Maybe the purists buy metal tracks and the too many modelers were buying Tamiya’s newer kits that are not longer cheap and simple. (Dragon must be in kind of a pickle. If they admit that Magic Tracks are only a marginal improvement over one-piece, or sit between them and metal tracks, they could put in danger the market for the two or three hundred kits they have out now that have MTs. But if there are others going, “gee I like Dragon, but Magic Tracks sucketh and I shall buy from Tamiya” that’s trouble too. It’s a jungle.) Anyway, I’ll do my Pz 38(t) and my Cyber-Hobby Stalin Tank, both with MTs, but I won’t buy any more, especially as there is no longer any need.
-
Zimmerit. That was an experience I could have lived without. I used Apoxie Sculpt – and tore off the first batch entirely because it was seriously out scale and looked lousy. (New Zimmerit looks lousy too, so there’s a problem there.) The second batch I kept because this all took a full day of my life and it was either live with it or skip the Zimmerit. At best I got something that someone on Armorama described as “expressing Zimmness.” This might well be my only crack at the art too. (Although Apoxie Sculpt is terrific stuff and will be of great help in modeling.) I’ve got an early Tiger (no Zim) a late Tiger II (no Zim), and a Dragon PzIV and JagdPanther both with Zimmerit on them. (Obviously the scale and detail of the molded Zim are much better: I wonder, however, whether complete models will show “Zimmness.” I’ll live with it they don’t.
-
Dragon. Well, no question Dragon makes kits with admirable detail. Sometimes I was astounded how well tiny pegs on tiny parts fit into tiny holes on other tiny parts. Likewise the fit was so close on occasion glue was almost unnecessary. I was mightily impressed – for a while. As reality set it, I saw things differently. No model is perfect and modelers wouldn’t want to pay for one built to standards that allowed flawless build. But when you’ve got hundreds of parts, that’s hundreds of chances for flaws. And flaws there were. But the chemistry took getting used to. Everything worked so well at first, that I started to let my guard down. About that time it became all too obvious that Dragon could screw up and you had to keep your eyes open. This was not helped by an astonishing amount of plastic gunkies attached to parts on the sprue. No real problem if you knew they were waste. A serious problem if the knobs or circles or whatever looked like a part of the piece. A serious problems when massive hunks of plastic were stuck in “mission critical” areas preventing the heart of construction until it dawned on one that they weren’t supposed to be there and simply cut them off. Nothing was helped by Dragon’s very poor instructions. I did a Zvezda kit with worse instructions, but because they were so bad you knew you had to figure everything out in advance. Dragon’s details lulled me more than once. This really got ugly when Dragon’s design corresponded with some serious driving error on my part. I would have paid $20 for Tamiya instructions for Dragon’s Brummbar – easily worth the hours squandered for no reason. (Why doesn’t every model maker realize the value of full and detailed diagrams and photos of the complete kit? Dragon skipped a view from above – a big skip.) I have no false pride about my own abilities but at the start of every step in the last half of construction I’d think – okay, what’s behind that door? the lady or the tiger? Dragon’s design of the Schurzen and the braces for connecting them to the hull stand as some of the worst design work I’ve ever encountered in modeling. As luck would have it, a photo build of a Tri-Star Brummbar was available and they chose a much different solution that I’m sure would have worked far better. As it stood these things should have been made to come on and off easily. As in many other cases, I have no doubt a really good modeler could have made them work that well. I sure couldn’t and ended up with a lot of super glue before they all got on. They’re all on, in order, but they’re never coming off. I take responsibility for many of the errors that plagued this project and I trust I’ll be much readier for the tiger next time out. But Dragon is not going to put Tamiya out of business – and they shouldn’t.
-
Weathering. I must admit to be fascinated by the work coming out of AK, MIG and other. (Much of the “modulation technique” is in my Gary Edmondson’s guide to painting and finishing, so this isn’t exactly cutting edge stuff invented last week.) And I am absolutely convinced that heavy weathering is very good history if the model is of a WWII AFV as it would have appeared at the front. Sure haven’t mastered it though. After I put down the base coat there were very visible indications of shadow, irregular finish, differing tones/hues etc. (No complaints concerning Polly Scale Acrylics – railroad variety – and the Vallejos used: they were very good.) The problem was that every stage after filters eroded the original “modulation.” Driver error here no doubt, but it simply proved very difficult to keep various shades and shadows intact after washes, dry brushing and pigments. The step that caused me real trouble was streaking. Here again, we’re talking very solid history. When I was done with construction (minus Schurzen) and filters I looked at Mr. Ugly and was really kind of pleased. I thought, “why not throw on the damn skirts, put some mud on the tracks, do a little pigment work with the Tamiya kiddie-boxes and call it a wrap?” But then I thought – no streaking – no oil stains – this won’t do. Even successful streaking (I used Mig Jimenez presently favored techniques of using enamels stumped with white spirits) is going to dirty things up, but I figured it worth the candle. In this realm the Zimmerit was no help at all. Those subtle streaks going down a smooth surface didn’t work so well rolling over the apoxie hills and valleys of the Zim covered surface. Actually there are bits and pieces that look very much the way I wanted them too. But in combination, something didn’t jell.
-
Result. I can’t consider this kit a success. It just doesn’t look right. The construction is okay – it just took longer than needed to get it that way. The original paint job, in my terms, was quite good. But I simply couldn’t keep the weathering under control. (Can’t say the damn Schurzen helped the cause.) And it’s ugly. (Choose whether it’s as ugly as my ISU-152.) But I sure learned a lot. It is a tank (or kind of one) and that’s good. And it’s a Dragon and it’s done. No small thing because I have six more Dragons sitting in their lair. (Not to mention four big ticket Tamiya AFVs, a couple of Zvezda Red specials and a 35 scale MkI and Renault BT-17.) Gotta to keep the wheels greased.
Eric
