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Dragon 1/35 Sturmgeschütz III (F1)

By Brian Medina

Overview

The Sturmgeschütz, or StuG III, was a fully armored, tracked vehicle on low slung chassis based on the Panzer III tank, equipped with a powerful artillery gun. Originally designed to provide close support for German infantry, by the middle of World War II it had been developed into a potent anti-tank weapon. The Sturmgeschütz, or "assault gun", abbreviated to Stu.G was produced in larger numbers than any single version of any other German tank or armored fighting vehicle of the Second World War.

The StuG did not have a rotating turret, and therefore is generally not considered to be a true "tank". The gun was mounted directly in the hull, in a casemate style fashion, with as low profile as possible to reduce vehicle height making them a more difficult target. Since there was no turret, the entire vehicle had to be turned to acquire it's targets which was ok for firing long distances as with the standard artillery gun, but for a short range flamethrower....not so much.

In 1943, 10 StuG IIIs were converted to StuG III (Flamm) configuration by replacing the main gun with a Schwade flamethrower. These chassis were all pre-Ausf. F models refurbished at the depot level. There's no reports to indicate any of them were ever used in combat and eventually all were returned to Ausf. G standard by 1944. The logistical failure of pairing a flame thrower with a turretless track vehicle was likely the demise of this venture and the reason why they never made it to the battlefields.

This particular version of the StuG is a rather eclectic one considering only 10 were ever built, so it's rather fitting that this kit will be a very limited edition, one production run only - release from Cyber-Hobby.com/Dragon. Once they're gone, they're gone forever.

The Kit

While I can't speak from personal experience, from what I understand this boxing is nearly the same as Dragon's Ausf. F/8 kits, using most of the same sprues with a new sprue ("C") added containing six new parts for the flame projector and a brass photoetch armored cover.

The cardboard box comes in a top/bottom half arrangement, and stuffed inside you'll find over 750 parts! The sprues are all molded in a typical gray styrene (except of course the two clear sprues) that are neither too soft nor too brittle. There are several bags containing sprues, but not every sprue is bagged individually.

The casting of the parts is top notch with very crisp detail and free of any flash. Perhaps due to the complexity of some of the parts however, it does seem some of the smaller parts have an excessive amount of pour stubs. I'd also say that the pour stubs overall tend to be a bit larger than I'd like to see, but they are certainly manageable. Mold half alignment appears great, and the mold half seam lines are minorly present on most parts, again, nothing the average modeler can't handle.

In the box you'll also find a cardboard sheet with two separate bags of Magic Tracks links, one in "light" and one in "dark" plastic designed to be side specific upon installation. There's also a length of wire for the steel tow cables as well as a very small decal sheet

(one generic markings for an unknown unit), and two separate bags containing the photo etch sheets.There are also two small sprues of clear parts which are nicely cast and quite - well, clear.

One potential source of frustration could be some of the sprue designations. There are multiple sprues with the same letter designator. Now sometimes that happens, but usually you'll have, say one sprue "X" with numbers 1-25 and another sprue "X" with part numbers 26-50. Not in this case. For example, there are three different sprue "A" each starting with part number 1. Now it's not really rocket science, and clearly the parts are different enough from each other to figure it out, but I just found it peculiar. This also happens with two of the "C" sprues.

The instructions are contained on a single, trifold sheet of 13"x22" paper printed on both sides in visual diagram format. The concise nature of the instructions leaves something to be desired in that there are several areas where part placement is a bit unclear.

Construction is carried out over 15 steps and as usual starts with the running gear/hull components. Once that is completed, assembly turns to the rear of the vehicle with what appears to be the engine aspiration components before moving on to the fenders and attached equipment. 

Steps 7-12 involve the upper hull interior and exterior parts. First the interior is assembled should you decide to pose the top hatches in the open position, otherwise I see no reason why you couldn't just omit these parts all together to speed up the build a bit. There does appear to be a fairly good amount of detail included with which to fill up the interior including radios, a few weapons, and some other equipment. After assembling the interior and exterior upper hull parts, attention is turned to mating the front and rear upper hull halves together then to the lower hull, finishing off with track installation.

Painting should be a breeze as this particular kit has only one scheme, which is a single solid color indicated as "Dark Yellow" (H403), and since these units never saw any combat service, I'd imagine weathering could be left to a minimum.

Conclusion

Dragon/Cyberhobbies.com latest StuG release will prove to be a great addition to any armor modelers display case. All in all, there's plenty of parts to keep a modeler busy for quite some time, and despite a few hiccups like multiple same letter sprues, the average modeler will certainly get their money's worth from this kit. It's great to see model companies venturing outsitde the box to offer up obscure subjects such as this.

Due to the immense parts count of this kit, and it's limited edition nature, I'd recommend the modeler be at least semi-experienced, and a fan of WWII German Armor or StuG fan.

I'd like to thank Dragon USA for the review sample. Please check back soon for my full build article to follow.