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REVIEW
Bergepanther mit Pz.IV Turm
firstcircle
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England - South East, United Kingdom
Joined: November 19, 2008
KitMaker: 2,249 posts
Armorama: 2,007 posts
Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 11:34 AM UTC
Matthew Lenton builds and discusses Dragon’s s.Pz.Abt.653 field-modded Panther with the PzKpfw IV turret, and finds a few issues.

Link to Item

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!
The_musings_of_NBNoG
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Oregon, United States
Joined: January 08, 2012
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 11:42 AM UTC
I don't know....I'd think a kit with 30% of the parts missing would be written up as a low.
firstcircle
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England - South East, United Kingdom
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Posted: Monday, February 24, 2014 - 12:23 PM UTC
Yes, you're right.
tread_geek
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Ontario, Canada
Joined: March 23, 2008
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Posted: Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - 01:02 PM UTC
A very informative review of a rather unique prototype. I am surprised by the solid turret back as I recall reading somewhere that in one case it was open and another that there were two doors back there for a winch that was positioned in the interior. As you mention, information or pictures of this unique vehicle are in short supply. The Ausf. D Early looks to be the base vehicle and while it has it's faults, it is still better than the older G version kit. I can also confirm that the Early D kit comes with the 16 bolt road wheels. Good review and very nice to read it.

Thanks,
Jan
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England - South East, United Kingdom
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Posted: Thursday, February 27, 2014 - 11:55 AM UTC

Quoted Text

I recall reading somewhere that in one case it was open and another that there were two doors back there for a winch that was positioned in the interior.


Jan, the information I could find seemed to suggest that once converted in this way, the tank was used as a command tank, rather than a recovery tank. Bearing in mind what I said about these very early Bergepanthers having been fitted with little or no specialist equipment, I had a kind of amused vision of the heavy tank battalion taking delivery of the original Bergepanther, and saying "what the hell's that supposed to be...?" and deciding to fix it by sticking a spare turret on top.


Quoted Text

The Ausf. D Early looks to be the base vehicle and while it has it's faults, it is still better than the older G version kit. I can also confirm that the Early D kit comes with the 16 bolt road wheels.


Yes, the Early is the base for this and for the Late kit too, the problem here is they should have used the Early wheels, but for no reason at all they picked the Late wheels. Silly mistake which could probably be easily corrected by Dragon even now.


Quoted Text

Good review and very nice to read it.


Thanks! It's nice when one's efforts are appreciated (hint, hint...)
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