TMN: Build review Pt.I: ICM's 1/35 Sd.Kfz.3B with 2cm flak 38.

A Maulitier with a big gun on top is an interesting build proposition. Today Andy King takes on ICM's 35th scale Sd.Kfz.3b with Flak 38 "Truppenluftschutzwagen" kit to a great standard. See how he navigates it in Pt. I, today...

Build review Pt. I: Sd.Kfz.3b with Flak 38 "Truppenluftschutzwagen"

From ICM

1/35th scale

Kit No# 35455.

245 parts

Price: $75 USD from Hobbylink Japan

Product Link on the ICM Website

The Sd.Kfz.3B (or V3000/SSM) 'Maultier' was essentially a 2 ton Ford truck that was fitted with a tracked assembly rather than the single axle at the rear. The truck was used for many purposes from an ordinary load carrier to ambulance with many variations in between, one such variation was of that depicted in this kit which mounted the single barrelled 2cm flak 38.

The truck itself in the kit is an earlier one tooled in 2010 with the tracked assembly being added in 2012, the 2cm the flak itself being a fairly recent release from 2014. Although the basic truck is a few years old, moulding quality is not that bad with a small amount of flash present although there are some annoying pin marks showing in a few obvious places. Detail-wise it's OK but it definitely needs an etch set to dress it up as some details are on the chunky side as you'll find out during the course of the build.

Starting with the chassis and this is a multi-part assembly that requires care as it's very easy to get it out of alignment, something not helped by the soft plastic that ICM use. Also on the outside of the chassis rails you will find mould-pin marks that need to be filled as these are quite visible and for this I used superglue with accelerator to speed up the drying time, this being used throughout the assembly to add strength to some very delicate joints;

The very visible mould-pin marks on the sides of the chassis rails

After gluing the suspension springs to the front of the chassis note that parts A39 and A40 should be the opposite way to that shown in the instructions, also the instructions call for the spare tyre to be added at this point but leave it off until later as this article will show.

The engine is next with optional parts for the radiator and although it's quite well detailed, it's pointless adding any more to it as there is no provision to have the bonnet (or hood) open unless you fancy some scratch building. Although you add the gear lever to the transmission at this point, leave it off until the final assembly otherwise you won't be able to fit the cab.

The underside of the engine had a pretty hefty seam that needed filling.

The gear lever fitted to the transmission but later removed.

The front axle is workable but to me it was a very sloppy fit so this was firmly glued into position, after which the exhaust was fitted after drilling out the end;

It's not very clear in the instructions how parts A4 attach to the front bumper so here's a picture showing their correct location;

Step 25 sees the build of the rear tracked assembly, the tracks themselves being the link-and-length type. The road wheels all feature mould-pin marks on one side but if you have them facing inward you can't see them. The suspension units are quite fragile and I ended up gluing the wheels and return rollers in place to make for a stronger assembly plus there's not much point in having the wheels turn unless you are driving the model around the bench.

The sub frame for the track assembly was built next with the wheels dry-fitted to the axles and the track sections cut from the sprue and cleaned up;

For the first attempt at assembling the tracks I started with the bottom run (parts E3 and E4) and glued eight individual links together for each side of them (parts E1). The individual links were wrapped around the idler and sprocket, however it was difficult to do due to the size and fragility of the tracks;

The top run (part E2) was gently bent to recreate the track sagging over the return rollers;

Eventually I got the track links to meet up;

I inadvertently put the outer holes in the tracks around the sprocket but before the glue had set I managed to correct the mistake and put the sprocket on the centre holes. After all that the process was then repeated for the other side but this time starting with the top run first;

This time with the sprockets correctly centred on the middle holes in the tracks. Once the tracks were on the whole assembly was left to set for a day or so;

With the track assembly fully set, I put the front wheels together and dry fitted them to the front axle. I then tried to glue the track sub frame to the chassis, unfortunately the chassis brackets (parts A58 and A59) were in the way and had to be removed. Once they were cut off it was then possible to finally fit the sub frame to the chassis;

Again a combination of superglue and accelerator was used to provide strength and the chassis was left to set.

Moving on to the cab and this was assembled in such a way so as to help painting by leaving the back of the cab removable. The windscreen and firewall were glued into place first;

The fit of the bonnet (hood) wasn't very clear so I fully assembled both versions supplied in the kit so that it would give me a better idea;

With the bonnet and sides assembled I could then fit it to the cab;

The fit of parts was pretty good at this point although very much later on I had to change the bonnet top but more about this later.

Again the instructions were pretty vague regarding the fit of the mudguards but this is how they SHOULD fit;

You do have a choice of mudguards/fenders but the cab is a late type so these are the ones required (parts H21 and H22). As stated above the cab was partially assembled to assist painting;

The join between the cab rear and roof required a bit of filling but wasn't that bad. The holder for the shovel on the side of the bonnet is far too chunky and although I wanted to keep the build to reflect what you get for your money I ended up replacing it;

I also added a clamp for the handle of the shovel made from scrap brass strip and copper wire. The bracket for the Notek light on the left fender was substantially thinned down as again this part was far too chunky and to add strength to the headlights, these and the mounts were drilled out and copper wire inserted;

The width indicator on the right fender was replaced with copper wire and a ball from a water jug filter glued to the top;

The cargo bed was next and unfortunately this is where things started to go down hill as although I was going to have the sides down it became apparent that there would be very little strength to the assembly so I glued all the sides closed but more about the cargo bed later on in the article.

The 2cm flak was the last of the major assemblies and this is a fairly recent tooling from 2014. It depicts a 'mid' production version that still had the Flakvisier electronic gun sight but I feel that the later type with an 'iron gunsight' would have been more appropriate as this vehicle is a late war example.

The gun itself is not bad but again I found some parts to be on the chunky side such as the cartridge case holder on the left side and although the edges of the armour plates are chamfered they still look thick. The end of the barrel is solid and needs drilling out at the very least but the biggest omission is the spent cartridge net on the side of the gun carriage and although it is possible to make one from scratch it's tricky to actually do the framework.

Anyway to kick off the assembly it starts with the barrel and sides;

Once again the instructions are vague as to how they all fit together but the next picture shows the correct assembly;

The flash suppressor on the the end of the barrel is poorly represented as the real one features a number of small holes but due to the soft plastic, I almost destroyed the barrel just drilling out the end.

The gun carriage is made up of two parts each side;

You need to remove the raised mould-pin marks to get these to fit together nicely. You get a choice of two angles for the gun, either 20 or 45 degrees and then need the corresponding parts to match;

20 degrees

You could have other angles but this would involve modifying the kit parts somewhat.

45 degrees

The biggest problem here was fitting the gun to the carriage as the round mountings on the gun (parts B10 and B11) would not fit those on either side of the carriage. In the end I had to run a chisel around the inner circumference of the ones on the carriage and remove enough material until I could get parts B10 and B11 to actually fit; Not an easy task!

Once done the rest of the gun was put together, unfortunately the left armoured plate sat too far away from the centre plate so I ended up cutting the round support at the bottom and fixing the plate nearer the carriage.

The base of the gun is made up of two pieces and again you need to remove any raised mould pin marks to get it to fit. After gluing it together I was left with some pretty bad gaps however on the base of the real gun there is a cast or weld line around the middle so using heat stretched sprue I recreated this to hide the gaps;

The gaps were pretty bad.

Once all that's done and with drilling out the end of the barrel, you end up with a better looking gun;

The base that the gun sits on in the cargo bed ended up being 'fun' to build as I managed to break a few parts during clean up;

I ended up making the cross brace from plastic strip, a connecting bar at the end from plastic rod and the grab handles from copper wire;

So back to the cargo bed and the point where it all goes horribly wrong. It started with the actual bed as on the reverse side you have recesses for the cargo bed supports;

I misread the instructions and thought the front was where I marked it in the picture.....wrong! Unfortunately I wasn't to find out until it was time to fit the bed to the chassis. At first I couldn't work out why the bed would not fit onto the chassis until I found that I had the bed the wrong way around....duh! So after removing the cargo bed supports, filling in the recesses with plastic strip and cleaning everything up I re-glued the supports, only to find that the bed still wouldn't fit;

This shows where the cargo bed supports SHOULD have been in the first place...more or less.

This time the spare wheel was stopping the bed from fitting so after a think and a cup of tea I removed the shelf that the wheel sits on and glued it flush with the top of the chassis thinking that was the answer but still no.

In the end I figured that the actual bed supports were too small so glued 1mm square strips to the ends that meet the chassis and when set I sanded them to shape, this time the fit between the bed and chassis was much better although I couldn't fit the spare wheel through the gap. Before gluing the bed and chassis the shelf for the spare wheel was completely removed and the spare dry-fitted so that it would find its own place on the chassis;

Another problem was that the storage boxes under the cargo bed hung much too low and sat on top of the tracks;

To fix this the legs were removed then the boxes were glued back into place. By this time I had bought the book Nuts & Bolts Vol.28 about this series of vehicle and it showed up a couple of other issues such as the mudguards that I had been trying to fit under the cargo bed as on the actual vehicle they were not present due to the late type cab. The book also highlighted the lack of detail on the suspension parts so various nuts and bolts were added using a set from Meng;

With the mudguards and lack of detail on the running gear.

The mudguards were removed, extra detail added to the running gear and the legs on the stowage boxes cut off. In hindsight I probably should have used 1.5mm strips for the bed supports instead so that I would have had more 'wiggle' room when fitting the cargo bed to the chassis.

The Meng nuts and bolts set. Very useful!

Another thing I noticed when looking through the Nuts & Bolts book was that pictures of the real vehicle fitted with the 'einheits-fuhrer haus' did not have the bonnet that I fitted to the model initially so although it was very late in the build and with the cab built, I decided to replace the bonnet with the other supplied in the kit. Using a scalpel and making repeated cuts (including to one of my fingers) I manage to remove the bonnet with minimal damage and replaced it with the other one;

In fact I couldn't find any pictures of the previous bonnet being fitted so trust me to pick the wrong one.

I think the width indicator is the wrong type and in the wrong place so I'll probably replace it or just leave it off before I paint the model as photos show these to be not present on some vehicles.

The small boxes on the front of that cargo bed (parts C14) needed some considerable thinning before parts B3 would fit inside them;

With that the build was finally done!

In conclusion this is quite an interesting vehicle to model but it was not an easy one to put together. Although I made a mistake with the orientation of the cargo bed, the too narrow bed supports really didn't help along with the vague instructions and mix of early and late parts, luckily the Nuts & Bolts book helped clear up a few issues along with providing clear details of the running gear and although the kit tracks are not bad (if somewhat delicate) after market tracks for the Panzer I would look better. You could also add some more ammo magazines and a trailer as the 2cm flak had quite a high firing rate and would have got through quite a few rounds.

Considering the 2cm flak is a fairly new kit from ICM, I felt it was quite chunky detail-wise and the fit of the left armoured shield should have been much better, also the lack of a spent cartridge basket was annoying but you could argue they were not always fitted anyway.

The model is crying out for an etched set but at the time of writing there wasn't one available although the barrel for the 2cm flak can be substituted for a Master metal barrel for example.