I am in the process of building Dragon’s Puma and I am about to close the top hull to the bottom having finished painting the interior. I was looking at the box top when it occured to me that with all the antennas included, there was no radio inside to use with these antennas, photoetched and all! There is a radio included in the sprue but it is not included in the instructions. It is also marked “not for use”. May I have some opinions and expert remarks about this. Many thanks!
Best guess would be that it’s not visible with the turret hatches opened and/or that it’s a radio designed for either the 234/1 or 234/4 version (open topped vehicles) and so not correct for the Puma.
I can agree with you on that but why the antennas? And since they have included the interior why not the radio? Besides in a recent review, they have noticed that there are a lot of attaching points in the inside wall of the hull.
Sometimes DML does mysterious things when it comes to the inclusion of certain interior parts vs. others. [(-D] Most of the interior attaching points you are referencing are due to the fact that the interior/lower hull is the same for the 234/1, 234/2, and 234/4 kits that DML produced in the series. Some are used for that even if they don’t provide the interiors to go with them in the 234/2 kit. Since none of the Pumas survived the war, getting details on their interior layouts is tough while the exterior details such as the antennas are well known. Since they were recon vehicles, radio communication back to their attached units was an essential thing and if I had to guess, I’d say you could install the radios in the lower hull more or less where they would go in the 234/1 since it was also a recon vehicle and the turrets are in roughly the same locations.