went to baycon 2007 and picked up the following 1/35scale
trumpeter british challenger ii
and
testors/italeri panzerjager/marder iii
15 bucks for the pair
my question is in 2 parts
1 are they any good or lemons
2 what kind of work am i getting into to make things right on each
thanks
The price is right for the two. I’ve only built the marder and it’s a pretty old offering. Tristar and Dragon recently released a newer up-to-date version. The Italeri could benefit from every upgrade imaginable. The gun and interior areas are pretty basic. I’m not for PE this and that, but the muffler, MG, and tracks are areas of concern. If accuracy isn’t the problem, than you can build to look like a Marder. Here’s mine:
I replaced the MG with the one from Tamiya’s Marder kit. Inaccurate, but I thought it looked better. I have Osprey’s “Modelling the Marder”. Good book.
Squadron’s Applied Modeling Encyclopaedia Armor (yes, that is how they spelled it) has an entire chapter on how to spruce-up the Italeri Marder III. They put a fair amount of work into fixing it to bring it up to modern model standards. The book has several other useful articles as well.
Which Tamiya Challenger is it? They have an Op Granby, Desert Storm, Chally 1 Mk 3 version which is sometimes mislabeled as a Chally II. They also do a more current Challenger II (Desertised) that represents an Op Telic, Iraq, version with added armor and rubber dust skirts. Both are great kits and don’t need much work, they just represent different models.
For a great Challenger reference, check out Osprey’s Modeling the Challenger 1 & 2 MBT and Variants.
HeavyArty, I think he meant the Trumpeter Challenger 2. (atleast thats what the message says) If so, you may have to be more specific because they make 3 different versions.
Here are some reviews from PMMS and Missing Lynx.
http://perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/trumpeter/tr00323-45.html
http://missing-lynx.com/reviews/modern/whiteley-brown_trumpeter.html
Hope this helps,
Townsy,
Whoops, how did I get Tamiya? Guess I need to read more carefully. So I correct my original question: Which Trumpeter Callenger is it? As stated, Trumpeter makes 3 versions as well. All are pretty good. The original boxing had some problems, but they were corrected in the later OP Telic (Desertised) and KFOR versions.
Gino mine is the original challenger boxing
If that is the case, here is some info that mentions teh problems with it from the review of the newer kits at PMMS.
"As mentioned some of the parts from the first kit have been updated with additional details and corrections with the main wheel rims having the distortion problems on the first kit eliminated and are now perfectly formed but the centre hubs are still slightly off centre. The idler wheels are the same as in the first kit and the drive sprockets require some trimming of excess plastic. On the inside of the lower hull the brackets for the motor have been removed eliminating any hint of motorization.
On the upper hull the front fender hinge line has been moved about 2mm forward and the fender detail refined while wiring for the front lights and additional weld seams have been included on the front hull surface and the rear TECs (Thermal Exhaust Cowls) have additional details on the top. The two rearmost fuel filler caps have been moved forward to the correct position and the forward engine deck grills have been lengthened.
The turret has the serrated flange added along the section in front of the main sight something that was conspicuous by it’s absence in the first C2 kit and the side tool boxes have minor detail enhancements.
Some of the sink marks on the first kit are no longer there but there is a bit of excess flash on some parts that is easily removed."
Hope that helps.
it does help thanks Gino
btw what about the other tank in this post my marder
(not my farder my marder) lol
Sorry, I don’t build German WWII stuff, so I don’t know anything about it. Italeri’s German pieces are usaully pretty good though. Good luck on it.