Hi, Just picketd this kit up Saturday and have spent some time today going through the instiructions, all 40 pages of them!
Like their big T-34s and K-5 R.R. gun, this kit comes in a real big box that is just loaded to the very tip-top with plastic spures just full of detailed parts and other assorted little boxes filled with more goodies all their own. Sure is a big advancement over the Dragon offering, and with the R.R, cars to boot. The only think I’m not really crazy about are those ‘rubber band’ tracks, but I guess it’s not a perfect world now is it? (Maybe somebody will come out with an aftermarket set of link-to-link tracks here before too long. Or if worse comes to worse, I may pirate the tracks off of the Dragon Morser I built here a year or so ago.)
One of the interesting things about this kit is that it shows how the two railway carriages can be hooked up in their travel configuration without the gun unit in the middle. Kind of neat! Building the kit like this would also cut down on the length of the overall kit, as I would imagine that building this thing all stretched out would give the K-5 a run for it’s money.
It also has drawings that show how the track sagged when gun is slung on its R.R. cars. Funny thing is that all the sag is shown on top and none underneath. There must be some kind of track support system underneath there somewhere. But I don’t see anything mentioned in the instructions about it.
But the overall kit looks really, really nice. And if you can get one at a good price it would be something to really be proud of once it’s all together. Looks like the only really hard part about it is finding the ‘free time’ to work on it. But I would imagine that is something of a ‘bug-bear’ for all modelers anymore. (This thing is supposed to be for my Xmas. Luckily I’m all wrapped up in one of the big T-34s now or I would be mighty tempted to just jump on this thing! Ha, ha!
Hehe, yeah it really is a great kit. I picked mine up a couple of days ago, and I just can’t get over how big the box and the kit really are. They’re HUGE [:D]
I don’t think I"ll get to building mine any time soon, and when I do, it’ll probably be months of construction and painting time.
These large kits that Trumpeter is comming out with recently are really doing wonders for their reputation.
Here’s to hoping they’ll continue.
Here’s an in-box review, with some comparisons to the Dragon kit: http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/trumpeter/tr00209.htm
One note of caution during assembly: Trumpeter’s Japanese distributor, Inter-Allied, announced in a recent magazine advertisement that there have been complaints that the recoil spring included in the kit is “narrow” (in Japanese, it said the spring was hosoi, which can mean: “slender, narrow, snug-fitting, fine, thin, weak, the state of being narrow in relation to length”).
In Japan, customers who are not satisfied with the spring as supplied in the kit can send it back to Inter-Allied to receive an updated spring, all expenses paid, including postage. Nice service!
Check Stevens International in the States to see if this same service is offered in the US. For other countries, check the Trumpeter distributor in your country.
And let’s see some pix when you get that big boy together![:)]
I had heard the same thing, and read in the review. However, I thought that this was only a problem with the inital batch of these kits, and was fixed thereafter. I guess I’ll have to double check my own tonight.
Yes the undersized recoil springs were only in the first release kits and has been corrected in all subsequent kits.
The recent shipment to the Australian Distributors all had the corrected springs and if you bought a first release kit with undersized springs you should contact your place of purchase for replacements.
I bought my kit from Rainbow Ten in Japan who were kind enough to send replacements without me having to ask, that’s service.[:)]