Tamiya's all-new 1/48 scale
Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer
Mittlere Produktion

Reviewed and Built by Brett Green

Tamiya's 1/48 scale Hetzer is available online from Squadron.com

Tamiya's brand new 1/48 scale mid-production Hetzer features good detail, superb fit, link and length plastic tracks, and separate hatches to permit the installation of crew figures.

In common with Tamiya's earlier 1/48 scale armour releases, the lower hull is supplied as a single, solid metal casting. This certainly lends weight to the overall model, but with the fixed suspension and the link and length tracks, the model would look exactly the same weight with or without the cast hull. The front and rear of the metal hull are covered by plastic pieces - certainly of benefit as this will enable consistent surface texturing.

Tracks are supplied as link and length in solid plastic. The track sprue incorporates a clever assembly jig for the top run, which ensures the correct curve is achieved for the drive sprocket. When this section of track is glued in place, it acts as a guide for the remaining track sections.

All tools are separately moulded in this release. They are quite well detailed even in this small scale

Inevitably, in this scale, some of the parts will appear slightly overscale or simplified, but they remain quite acceptable in my opinion. If you want to lift the level of detail and finesse, there are already several photo-etch detail sets available (including the Hauler set that I used on mine).

Construction

There is almost nothing to say about construction except "superb".

I was originally only going to use the superstructure as a showcase for the Hauler photo-etched parts, but after gluing a few kit parts together it was clear that construction would take no time at all, especially with the very simple running gear of only four road wheels and one return roller per side.

Fit of all parts was uniformly excellent. No filler was required anywhere. The tracks were especially noteworthy. They were an absolute pleasure to assemble, and lined up exactly to the last link. The only area that I tweaked was to smooth the curve of the tracks in one place on each side. I slightly bent the first link of the bottom track run upwards on the port side, and the rear link of the bottom run upwards on the starboard side.

I estimate that basic construction took around 5 enjoyable hours.

Without wanting to sound repetitive, Tamiya's 1/48 scale Hetzer is a beautiful kit that is easy to build yet matches the detail of many 1/35 scale models.

The whole series so far seems to be the antithesis of the 1000+ super kits being released in 1/35 scale today. You can build these 1/48 scale Tamiya armour kits in less than a day. It will not take much more than that to paint them.

I can only hope that we see a few more crew figure and diorama accessory releases in the coming months.

Highly Recommended.

Model, Text and Images Copyright © 2005 by Brett Green
Page Created 17 May, 2005
Last updated 17 May, 2005

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