DML 1/35 Super Heavy Self-Propelled Mortar 60cm Morser "Karl" Great 040

History:

The "Karl" was a German self-propelled super-heavy howitzer. In 1935, the German army requested a powerful self-propelled weapon for the destruction of fortifications in areas out of reach of railway guns. The first model, a 60cm (23.6 in. howitzer) was completed in 1939 by Rheinmetall-Borsig and after extensive testing two guns were issued for service, named "Thor" and "Eva". The equipment was known by the codename Karl Great 060. These two weapons were employed against Sebastopol and Leningrad and proved to be effective, if not cumbersome. The army considered that a slight reduction in shell weight would be an acceptable trade-off for more range, and Rheinmetall therefore built four more vehicles and developed a 54cm (21.2 in.) calibre barrel which could be interchanged with the 60cm one.

The Karl vehicles consisted of a simple steel-box hull supported on a tracked suspension. The hull was divided into three compartments: the forward compartment carried the Mercedes-Benz V-12 diesel engine and the transmission; the center compartment carried the gun mounting; the rear compartment held the vehicle's batteries and a reduction gear drive which was coupled to the torsion bar suspension anchorages and allowed the bars to be rotated so as to lower the hull to the ground and thus relieve the suspension of the firing shock.

The howitzers were short-barreled, with sliding block breeches, and were carried in a mounting which incorporated a dual recoil system. The barrel was able to recoil within its cradle, and the entire mounting recoiled within the vehicles hull, both movements being controlled by hydro-pneumatic cylinders.

The howitzer was mounted so as to fire over the rear of the vehicle. A small amount of traverse was available on the mounting, but major changes in direction had to be made by slewing the whole vehicle on its tracks. For movement, "Karl" had three options. For short displacements it could be driven under its own power, the gun being pulled back to the fully recoiled position and locked there. For longer distances by road, the weapon was dismantled and carried on transport wagons. The gun and breech, cradle and mounting, and the carraige recoil system and loading apparatus formed three loads each, carried on a a 16-wheeled trailer, while the chassis was carried on a 24-wheeled transporter.

For long distance moves by rail the complete vehicle was fitted with two cantilever arms attached to the ends of the hull. Using hydraulic jacks, the entire vehicle was raised allowing special rail-wagons to be run under the cantilever arms: the assembly was then lowered and the arms located on the pivots on the wagons. The suspension wheels were lifted and locked to the hull so as to relieve the torsion bars of stress during traveling. The final disposition of the six vehicles is not known; only three were found at the end of the war, two of which were badly damaged. These were eventually cut up for scrap and no "Karl" now remains.

Tech Data:

What's in the box?:

First of all, the box is GIGANTIC! It measures in at 21" x 13.5" x 5". The packaging of this kit is a FIRST for DML. It consists of a very sturdy, generic, white box that closes like a sweater box and has locking tabs to hold it shut. This is inside an outer SLEEVE that serves as the box art.

The box art, by DML's resident artist Ron Valstad, shows a "Karl" in overall Panzer gray scheme, with the nickname 'Loki" on it’s side, sitting in a field with six German soldiers around it. Side panel pictures show the complete kit, made up, in one picture and just the ammo loading trolly in a second picture. There is an illustration of the bonus turned aluminum shell included in the kit next to a German soldier, to give us the idea of the size of the rounds used in this beast.

Inside the kit there are 10 trees of medium gray colored parts in six cello bags. The vehicle's bathtub shaped hull bottom is in another cello bag along with a turned aluminum ammo round, the decal sheet, two metal springs, and a brass rod.

The instruction sheet is a large sheet that accordians out into eight pages.

Page one of the instruction sheet starts with a black and white copy of the boxart, followed by parts tree drawings. There is no history of the vehicle given. This lack of history is always a weak point in DML kits. It seems that they expect the modeler to know all about the subjects of their armor kits. I have only found histories in a couple of their kits, notably the ones produced in Shanghai. The Hong Kong ones never have the history included.

Page two begins with some general warnings about assembling the kit, in six languages. This is followed by interpretations of the assembly symbols and paint number list. The bottom of the page gives the first of a total of 20 assembly steps, which run through to page seven.

Page eight is the marking and painting drawings. There are two schemes given: the overall panzer gray scheme (seen also on the box art) with the nickname "Loki" and an earth yellow vehicle with wave pattern camouflage of red brown and khaki green. It carries the nickname "Ziu".

Parts tree A holds the vehicle's top, ends, catwalks, and tools (20 parts).

Tree letter B holds gun barrel parts, mufflers, ladders, chassis side panels, engine air intake grate, etc. (20 parts).

There are two identical letter C trees of parts. They hold the support trusses, railings, front panels for the gun, and other small fittings (52 parts).

Tree letter holds the panels that make up the body of the gun and its base (18 parts)

Tree letter E holds the parts for the ammunition loading dolly, elevation hand-wheels, hatch covers, recoil tubes etc. (50 parts).

Letter F is the one-piece bathtub of the hull bottom. The road wheel arms are molded integrally to this part, so posing the model going over rough terrain will be impossible.

The last four trees are letter G. Two of these are large and hold link and length type treads (another FIRST for DML. Most of their tank kits offer individual links.), return rollers, road wheels, drive sprockets, and idler wheels. The remaining two trees have had half of them removed and only hold the link and length tracks and more road wheels. (66 parts on each of the two full sized trees and 32 parts on each of the half trees)

Finally, is the turned aluminum ammunition round (this is called out as a FIRST ISSUE BONUS on the box art), two metal springs (to use in the gun's recoil system), a brass metal rod (haven't figured out where that goes yet?), and the small decal sheet. My scanner was not able to pick up the white "Ziu" on the decal sheet unfortunately, but it's there in white.

Conclusion

This kit is not recommended to the beginner on armor kits. The modeler should have a few other armor kits under his belt first.

The kit does not include the two railway cars that transported this vehicle by rail. However, I have been informed that Trumpeter brand plans to release a Karl also, in 1/35th scale too, and it will have the rail cars. It can be seen at: https://www.interallied.co.jp/karl.htm. This is a Japanese site and the text is in Japanese- however the pictures of the Trumpeter kit made up are neat. I am on the fence, as to whether I should have purchased this DML kit or waited for the Trumpeter one to get the rail cars.

Oh well, the DML kit is damn nice. Too bad they did not include the rail cars, and there are no figures in the kit either (in spite of the box art showing six German soldiers).

Highly recommended.

I purchased this kit from Greatmodels web store.