TAKOM

Sd.Kfz. 250/1

For a look at the First Look review of this kit, including a bit of history on this vehicle and a look at kit parts, please click the link below;

https://www.amps-armor.org/SiteReviews/ShowReview.aspx?id=15305

Building the Sd.Kfz. 250/1

The build of this little vehicle begins with installing lower hull sub-floor parts, cross members and supports. Take care to install them correctly seated and arrow straight, as the suspension torsion bars will need proper clearance to seat correctly. While just a bit snug, all parts fit well. The quarter in the photo above shows just how small this vehicle really was.

Installing eight torsion bars through the lower hull walls and into seating points on the opposite hull wall went well. Cementing the torsion bars only at the opposite hull wall mount point will allow the torsion bar to function similarly to the real thing, giving you a “workable” suspension.

Above - all eight torsion bars in place. It’s a shame that all this work will be hidden by the floor plate.

The drive sprockets are each made up of three parts. These parts mate up easily and positively, and look quite good when assembled. Note the nice, crisp bolt detail on the lower hull sides.

Each side of the vehicle had four doubled sets of road wheels, which are easily assembled once you figure which wheel parts to use….there is a mistake in the instructions, which state parts B4 and B5 need to be paired up for the doubled road wheels.

There ARE no B5 parts, but I did have an entertaining few minutes looking for them. I did find some unaccounted for road wheels (parts B9) which mated perfectly to the B4 parts, so mystery solved. 

Next we moved on to the front wheels axle/suspension assembly. Do some careful study of the instructions here before cementing anything, it will pay off. Despite there being only four parts involved, it’s entirely too easy to misalign a part or two here….don’t ask. 

Above - front wheels axle/suspension assembly ready for installation to the lower hull.

Above - the front suspension assembly fit like a glove into it’s mounting points on the lower hull.

The front wheels are made up of six “slices”, which key into one another. There are some very slightly raised ejector pin marks which must be sanded down to ensure the tire “slices” mate up flush to each other. A few quick swipes with a sanding stick will do the job.

Above - the tires look pretty nice once assembled. One minor note - the tires have no manufacturer markings or data on them.

Please Note - these wheels are supposed to be canted, or have positive camber, where the top of the wheel is further away from the vertical axis of the vehicle. Not knowing why this was done, I researched it, and found this on a performance car website of all places;

“Wheels are typically adjusted to have a positive camber for off-road uses, mainly because it reduces steering effort and provides greater stability for movement in a straight line. This makes it great for agricultural vehicles.”

Above - the instruction manual has a good illustration showing the front wheel cant. You might just want to note this on your reference paperwork if entering this vehicle model in a competition!

Okay, now it’s time to make tracks. These are some really tiny tracks, so take care when clipping them from the sprues! Above - The container on the left has the steel links, the container on the right has the pads which are REALLY tiny. Tweezer launch one of these and you can pretty much kiss it goodbye….Luckily, clean up of these parts is fairly quick and easy for both the links and pads.

Not to worry if you happen to tweezer launch a track part, there are eight spares of each part in the kit.

Above - assembly of the track links is dead easy, just place the pins from one into the recesses of another link, and cement the “rubber” pad into place. You’ll get workable tracks if you just take care with the cement, and do not use a cement that has any capillary action. I used Testors Model Master with the needle applicator. 

Above - a run of ten assembled tracks, shown with parts for another run of ten. Each complete run of tracks will need 38 links.

Above - a completed run of 38 track links, all workable.

Above - wheels, drive sprockets and tracks painted and ready to be mounted to the lower hull. Base color of the vehicle and all suspension components will be Tamiya acrylic German Gray XF-63. Rubber tires and track pads were painted with Tamiya acrylic Rubber Black XF- 85, and the track link metal parts were painted with AMMO by Mig Dark Tracks 0035.

Above - Front wheels, most road wheels installed, one run of tracks mounted. The recommended 38 links per side fits perfectly. The tracks were a bit snug fitting over the drive sprockets, maybe due to my pre-painting them.

With the suspension, wheels and tracks completed, now it’s time to go inside the lower hull. For such a small vehicle, there is a lot of stuff in there!

Above - the gearbox for the vehicle, this multi-part assembly is made up of quite a few tiny parts! There are several parts on the top of the gearbox which will be completely hidden by a cover.

The rest of the gearbox assembly fitted, including floor panels that mate to the engine firewall.

The drivers station and firewall. The floor pedals are so delicate that I broke one while removing it from the sprue, despite being very careful with it. Have I mentioned yet that this kit has a good number of TINY parts?

Above - test fitting the gearbox assembly and passenger compartment floor to the lower hull. Fit was a bit tight, but good.

The 6 cylinder engine is a jewel of a model in itself, made up of 25 parts. Some of the landing spots for a few of the parts aren’t very well shown on the instructions drawings, but careful examination of the parts and test fitting will help out. Fit is good once you’ve established the relationships between some of the smaller parts to the engine.

Above - the other side of the engine assembly.

Above - the final major assembly to be fitted to the lower hull, the rearmost section. I’m unsure of just what that large cabinet on top of the assembly is for…miscellaneous stowage I suppose?

Above - another test fit of the various sub-assemblies that fit into the lower hull. From left to right; radiator housing, engine assembly, engine/drivers compartment firewall, gearbox assembly, passenger compartment floor, and the rearmost floor section with cabinet. All sub-assemblies fit well with each other, and into the lower hull itself.

Above - the photoetched parts added to the gearbox assembly, three pieces per side. I’m not sure if these are heat shields or simply guards to protect the crew from rotating parts. At any rate, there are three parts per side, two of which must be bent to fit. The PE is quite thin and easily formed as needed. It was easier than I’d expected  to get these parts into place.

The final steps to complete before installing all or the various sub-assemblies into the lower hull is to construct the crew seats. These two seats are made up of four parts each. The seats are well detailed and fit together well.

Above - lower hull completed, some preliminary painting done. Earlier dry fitting went smoothly, so of course I had some minor problems getting all of the sub-assemblies to fit when placing them into the lower hull permanently! But with some “colorful” language and some gentle persuasion I managed to get all in place.

With the lower hull and it’s sub-assemblies built and in place, it’s time begin work on the upper hull walls.

Above - detailing the upper hull inner walls. Various kibbles and bits of equipment are added, including the upper seat back for the troop seating bench, a fire extinguisher, a gas mask case, spare vision blocks, and a twin drum magazine carrier for the MG-34. All fit into place well, no issues.

Above - right side upper hull nearly finished, below it is the left side, with all of the gear to be added. The small photoetched brackets for the MP-38/40 gave me a bit of trouble, they are so tiny, and must be mounted to the protrusions on the side wall, and bent. The weapons are quite well detailed, although I did feel the need to drill out the muzzle on the MG-42. 

Above - both upper hull side walls with all the various gear and components added. 

Fitting the side walls is fairly trouble free. The mount points at the engine bay are quite obvious and stable, the rest of the mating surface between the engine bay and the rear of the vehicle is a simple butt joint. The fire wall between the engine bay and the crew compartment serves as a great mid-point mount for the side walls and stabilizes things nicely.  In the image above, the field gray contraption below the MG-34 is its folded up tripod, made up of three parts. 

Above - the kit includes three really good looking tarps for covering the crew compartment of differing lengths. I will be using the shortest of the three as I don’t want to hide all the work I’ve done in the interior, the mid length and longest length tarps are seen above. Also seen are the various rolled tarps that are optional parts for fender stowage.

Another (opposite side) view of the vehicle with side walls installed to the lower hull. It’s a bit busy inside the crew compartment…it must have been quite cramped for two vehicle crewmen and four infantrymen in there!

Speaking of the crew, the kit comes with a driver figure. I don’t think I’m going to use the figure, but for the sake of a thorough review I will build the figure and ensure he actually fits into the driver’s seat. With some kits, that has been a problem…

The sculpting of the figure is pretty good: nice folds and draping of the uniform fabric. The head and hands are okay, but some may wish to replace the head and hands with resin replacements.

The figure went together well, and did fit into the drivers seat just fine. If you are going to use him, note that the figure’s right arm rests on the gear box housing, the left hand grasps the steering wheel. The arms are not keyed to the torso to allow for a better fit to the gearbox cover and steering wheel. 

Starting work on the fenders. The shiny bit in the center right is the PE bracket for the convoy light. It needs to be bent, and fits over three tiny studs on the fender. I’ll bet I knock the light / bracket off of the model at least 5 times before I finish building this little guy. 

Above are both fender units completed. The kit provides some nice stowage for both fenders, with the pieces formed to fit over the fender mounted tools as necessary. These folded tarps are optional, use at your discretion. Regarding the painting of vehicle mounted tools, sometimes I pre-paint them prior to mounting them, sometimes I paint them on the vehicles. Because of the good access to the tools in this case, I’ll just mount them and then paint them in place. 

Above - the fenders and rear hull plate fit perfectly to the hull.

Beginning work on the hull top, which has a surprisingly large amount of items to be added on both upper and lower surfaces of it. The top engine hatches can be opened due to the engine compartment being well detailed, although I chose not to. The engine side access locations aren’t actually open beneath the hatches. Also seen above are the nice photoetched engine ventilation screens. 

Another sub-assembly seen above is the plate where the vision blocks and armored view plates mount. I really wanted to open up the armored cover on the drivers side, but for the life of me I couldn’t manage to do it without major surgery. So the armored covers will be closed. Oddly, I was able to open the cover on the driver’s side vision block on the left hull side.

Above - the interior side of the plate containing the forward viewing vision blocks and the mechanism for opening and closing the armored covers. This entire assembly fit perfectly onto the upper hull part. 

As you can see the underside of the hull top above the crew locations is a pretty busy place. A nice looking radio, roof mounted head bumper pads, and crew grab handles are all mounted.

Above - the decal sheet contains several decals for the instrument panel dial faces and data plates. I also painted several dials and instruments on the radio, despite the fact that most of this detail will be next to impossible to see once the hull top is mated to the bottom.

The kit provides four nicely detailed Kar 98k rifles for the four infantrymen that this vehicle commonly carried, seen mounted in their rack in the above image.

Above - MG-34, gun shield and mounts. Note the tiny PE bracket for the gun’s pistol grip. All fit well. I did drill out the MG flash hider.

Above - MG shield and mounts.

With the MG emplacement completed, it was time to mount the hull top to the hull. I was worried about all of the complex geometry of the hull top, and all of the mating up surfaces involved. I dry fit the assembly to the vehicle probably 20 times, and always had at least one area that didn’t seem to mate up. After awhile, I just decided to apply cement and do the best I could….and wouldn’t you know it, the upper hull top mated up to ALL surfaces PERFECTLY!

The above image also shows the MG-34 position, which also fit perfectly.

With the mating up of the hull top and lower hull, primary construction is complete.

Painting Notes

As this is an open top vehicle, I did quite a bit of painting while building. Having no hull / fender top stowage bins along the sides of the vehicle pretty much defines this vehicle as an early war Panzer Gray vehicle. Plus, the four provided paint and markings schemes are for circa 1942 vehicles in Panzer Gray. So good old Tamiya German Gray, XF-63 it was. 

I opted for the 24th Panzer Division markings scheme. The 24th Panzer Division was a part of the German Sixth Army which spent the summer of 1942 advancing across the steppes of Southern Russia towards a bad end at Stalingrad. By the time the Russians sprung their big surprise on the Germans in late November, the 24th had been ground into virtually nothing during the bitter fighting for the city.

The decals provided for this kit are well made, and applied without any issues whatsoever. A couple of applications of setting solution and the decals settled into the paint very well.

I did a little post shading by lightening the base color with some flat white, then a bit of chipping with Vallejo German camo black / brown, followed up with some oil / Turpenoid washes. I have more detail weathering to do, but for the purposes of this kit review, this’ll do. In looking at the images below, I see that I need to work on that tarp….

Conclusions

When building an open top kit like this one, it sometimes feels like you’re building two kits at the same time, the inside and the outside. I spent a bit more time than I’d expected on this kit for that reason, despite the vehicle being such a small one. In fact, I felt like I was building a 1/48 scale kit at times.

I really enjoyed building this kit, the parts quality is quite good, and the fit was outstanding. There were a couple of places where the instructions weren’t quite as clear as I’d have liked, but not much of a problem.

The kit provides an appropriate amount of well made photoetched parts, and some really nice optional parts such as the driver figure, three different length tarp covers for the crew compartment ( I used the shortest of the three ), several rolled tarps for the fenders and some other smaller items. These extra parts are a very nice touch by TAKOM.

This kit is a very fine effort from TAKOM, and a great beginning to what hopefully will be several more kits based on this vehicle.

Highly Recommended! 

Thanks to TAKOM for the review kit

Reviewed by Chuck Aleshire, AMPS Chicagoland

AMPS 2nd Vice President, Midwest Region

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