FLAMMPANZER 38(t)

by Takom kit #2180

Review of Hitler's wonder weapon

Not wanting to quote sources directly, this vehicle was brought about by Hitler, late in 1944, out of a need for flame throwing vehicles.  Out of the vehicle chassis that were available at that time, the Hetzer 38(t) chassis comprised many of the 30 some odd vehicles that Hitler had spoken for.  The main cannon was replaced with a flame throwing weapon in it's place.  The 7.5cm Pak 39 L/48 main weapon was removed in order to make room for the flame throwing apparatus that would occupy the fighting compartment once the cradle and traversing mechanisms were removed, along with the cannon.  The flame thrower had an effective range of 50 meters when firing unlit flammable oil onto a target.  This range was often extended 60 meters if the flammable mixture was lit.  It could be fired in a short controlled burst to where 60-70 one second bursts could be thrown at the target.  Often, there was just enough fuel oil to lase about a total of one minute.  So, the use of the flame thrower was a very exacting affair and the target had to be in range, otherwise you were wasting your flammable reserves.  Out of the initial production order, only about 20 were ever made.  A handful would see action along the German and French borders with Kompanie 352 and 353 of Panzer Abteilung 5, 25 Panzer-Grenadier Division.  Needing a close-in support structure, those that went against targets without fire support were fodder for Allied tank destroying units.

Construction of the kit:

The first steps out the gate are in the area of assembling the hull.  The parts fit together pretty nicely, however...you need to make sure that you look at how the mating surfaces are "angled".  If you don't put those together in such a way as to mate up the angle, it can throw you off. I would make sure that you clean all mating surfaces really well. 

I found that by turning over the hull as I was putting the sides on, it helps to keep the parts true to their being "level" with the top hull edges being flush which will be important when the hull top is put on.  In this model, the cut angled pieces of the hull top have to be flush with the bottom hull or you will have a noticeable gap where they join and you definitely do not want that.

I know I didn't need to remove these seam lines on the undercarriage parts but I did anyway.  The way the side skirts are down on the sides of the sponsons, you really have to go in there with a flashlight to see anything like this and even then, it's pretty hard to do that, if not impossible.  I still cleaned off the seam lines because I'm a purist and not doing so would drive me nuts 10 years from now.

Let me talk about the tracks.  The tracks are very nice.  Link and length tracks with excellent detail for kit tracks.  They go together nicely.  I had no trouble putting the tracks on after cleaning up a few minor blemishes here and there.  It's nothing taxing to use or to do to get that done.  I constructed the tracks right on the running gear to make sure the fit would be spot on with following the instructions.  This also made for a great connection when it came to securing them to the roadwheels as painted parts will sometimes make for an inferior bond.  I did this without securing the road wheels to the sponsons.  Why?  Because in this manner, I could remove the tracks in one piece, joined end to end.  Then I simply just painted the tracks and the wheels.  Made for easy painting this way and then I applied the running gear once painted, back onto the sponsons.  So much easier to do that.

Side view of the assembled, prepainted parts.  I decided that I would only lightly weather the sponson details behind the wheels so assembled all of the components this way.

The hull top has been attached to the hull bottom.  With an angled hull like this, it's imperative you dry fit as you go along.  At this stage, it made the alignment of parts that have to mate so much easier.  Start from the ground up with your hull bottom, then when you attached the hull top, the fit will be spot on.

I added the roof part in this step.  With the hull top secured, this made the roof part addition really easy to add.  The join all the way around the roof part was even and true with the gap uniformly the same.  An uneven gap on this model would be really bad and noticed by the judges almost immediately so this was a good sign that by the time I reached this step, if the gap was uniform, it meant that I had absolutely no alignment issues from the beginning which is what you want.

The cannon assembly is a little tricky. The instructions are good overall but you have to think about the orientation when you are putting the pieces together to form the cannon outlet rods for the manner in how you have the cannon turned upside down for installation.  I remember looking at how the parts were oriented in the illustration in the instructions and had to verify what I was seeing, how the parts inserted into the tube and how they would be set into the opening with the mantlet installation.  Just be careful in this step and go slowly before you dry fit the parts into the opening.  I highly recommend you do this before you glue the parts in place.  It will definitely save you some heartache later!

The only place I had to use any filler was in the cannon area and if the truth be known, I really didn't have to do that as the shroud that goes over the cannon parts will hide that.  This kit is made really well with exacting measurements and spot on crispness of parts.  If you take your time and clean up the parts prior to gluing them together, you get a proper fit.  The fact that I used very little bondo (my filler putty) is a testament to the fit of this model.

At those point in the construction, the rear hull plating is being added.  You can see how the fit shows gaps on where the rear hull top does not touch the rear plate.  There are some interesting positioning issues here at this point that you have to be careful to avoid.  Dry fit here is VITAL.  If not, you'll get dinged by those AMPS judges.   

There is a vertical engine compartment part that is added here.  Again, there is an interesting challenge in alignment that you have to get right because access doors are added to either side of the part that you are adding.  Make sure you insert the doors on either side at this point, before you glue this center part in.  This will make sure that the part is properly centered prior to gluing them in place.

In this photo, you can see where the rear hull plating and the hull top have been properly joined without there being any gaps that have to be addressed.  That is how well the fit is on this kit.  I would take this kit fit all day long on this one.  That is how great the engineering fit on this kit is.  It's superb.  The photo etch fret only has two parts to add; one is the screen you see here and the other is a simple aiming pointer that is added onto the end of the flame nozzle to aim the cannon.   That part is so small and delicate that I broke that after the first time I accidently touched it.  So I removed that part (what was left of the stub).

Conclusions

Highly Recommended for Beginner to Advanced builders.

Thanks goes out to Takom for this review kit.

Reviewed by GLEN MARTIN

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