Dragon 1/72 Pz.Kpfw. III Ausf. L Late Production
By Matt Bittner
Overview
The Panzer III was designed to be the main battle tank of the German Army, with the first production example rolling off the lines in the spring of 1937. Improvements and changes came quickly, though, and by 1939, the vehicle was already up to the Ausf F variant. While the Panzer III performed well in the limited engagements on the Western Front, the shift eastwards and exposure to the Soviet T-34 and KV tanks showed the PzKpfw III to be inferior all around. Although armor and armament improvements increased the success of the Panzer III, it was still not enough, and the Panzer IV took over the role as the primary tank.
The Kit
Dragon's latest small scale armor kit covers the Panzer III Ausf L molded in the standard Dragon medium gray plastic, with a couple small frets of photoetch and a decal sheet with several options.
Construction starts with the main hull, and this one will be both simple and complex. Simple, because the main hull is done in one piece. This one-piece casting is absolutely stunning, with crisp detail on all sides. It gets complex, though, because there's quite a bit of stuff to add on.
The suspension will be fairly straightforward, with all the various wheels built up from separate halves. The drive sprocket gets a separate housing to add to the hull and there are some additional struts to put in place. While much of this could have been molded in place, this modularity allows for many variants to be built from the same basic hull. There are add-on pieces for the rear and front hull, again to cover the variant differences. The tracks are provided in the DS format, which are quite fun to work with. Simply count off the 92 links and make sure that the length is 158mm. If it's a bit short, you can stretch these with little effort.
Moving to the upper hull, this is split into a couple sections, with molded-on hatches. The main upper hull has separate side and front pieces, with additional armor for the front. Photoetch provides the engine intake grills. With that done, the upper hull can be attached, and the fenders put in place.
With the main hull finished up, the next step is the turret. There is a separate cupola provided, with the proper example for the Ausf L provided. The gun is quite nice, with both the main gun and the machine gun having hollow barrels (truly remarkable in the case of the machine gun).
As this is an Ausf L, the decal options providing four examples from Russia:
- Pz.Rgt.27, 7.Pz.Div., South Russia, 1943 finished in white-wash over Panzer Yellow, "Red 301"
- Pz.Rgt.4, 13.Pz.Div., South Russia, 1942, finished in Panzer Yellow with Red Brown splotches, "White-outlined 7, White 11"
- Pz.Rgt.33, 9.Pz.Div., South Russia, 1942, finished in Panzer Yellow with Khaki Green splotches, "Red 421"
- Wiking Division, Russian, 1942, finished overall in Panzer Yellow, "White-outlined 115"
Conclusion
This is a great extension of the Dragon Panzer III/StuG III family, and I am sure it will go together easily. One day I hope to build both this, and the Attack Panzer III for a side-by-side article.
My thanks to Dragon USA for the review sample.