Hey Team,
Who in your opinion makes the best SdKfz 161/2 PzKpfw IV Ausf J? I know Dragon just came out w/the F2 that looks very nice, do you know if they are planning a new Ausf H or J? I have not looked that closely at the Tamiya offering, what is your opinion of that kit?
Thanks,
Steve
I have the Tamiya J and it is quite beautiful in itself. It lacks the Late muffler and Thoma schurzen shields, but is more accurate than the Shanghai-Dragon version. The Dragon does come with the Thoma shields however.
Never underestimate Dragon, they could turn their existing J into a Premium Kit much like others they are doing.
I don’t know about the alleged inaccuracies of the Dragon kit–I used it as the basis for my “Panzer IV with Schmalturm” that I posted a while back, and thought it built up beautifully. I’ve also used the Tamiya one as the basis for a destroyed tank in a dio that I wrote up and recently sold to FSM for publication; that one’s a joy to build as well.
The Dragon one has the correct late hull extensions that were made into the front towing pintles; the Tamiya one is an early model. The Dragon also has the late “tube” exhausts while Tamiya’s has the standard can. The Tamiya one is really just like a standard H model with the requisite parts deleted to call it a “J”, but in my opinion, the Dragon one looks more the part with those nifty hull extensions. Of course there’s also the difference in tracks, i.e., link (which looks awesome “drooped” on an ausf J) vs. Tamiya’s standard vinyl rubber bands…
One thing I will warn you about however is that you will go psycho trying to assemble Dragon’s Thoma shields; I tried it and about committed myself! The directions are just too vague to get them to line up correctly–Go with the Eduard PE set, they’re a little complex themselves but are worth the effort.
Hi Doog. Good points. I have an old Military Modeller from 1991 and it had a side-by-side review of them both. I remember them saying the Tamiya kit was better, but I’ll see if I can dig it up.