Strictly following the beaten path of releasing two opposing sets each time, Zvezda has provided a VVS ground crew to match the Luftwaffe set 6188.
Zvezda 1/72 Soviet Air Force Ground Crew, kit 6187
There’s a reason the review is uploaded after the German crew – the kit has something special in it. Figures are made after the characters from the Soviet movie “Only Old Men Are Going to Battle” – a fragment is shown below:
Just have a look at these two (esp. the one on the left):
and you will understand what I mean.
Now… “Old men” is rather used for experienced ones rather than aged. In war where life expectancy on the battlefield was measured in hours and medals were presented for surviving 20 combat flights you could consider such a veteran the squadron’s old man. But I digress.
In recent years Zvezda has released multiple snap-fit aircraft kits in 1/72 scale that include excellent pilot figures. They have now “gone full circle” by releasing ground crews to accompany these kits. First off – the Luftwaffe crew.
Zvezda 1/72 German Air Force Ground Crew, kit 6188
As shown on the now-standard box – there are 5 figures, a bomb trolley with a bomb, a fuel drum and a jerry can included. As with some other sets you can either use a single base for all the guys, or use individual ones.
Zvezda 1/72 German Air Force Ground Crew, kit 6188
Typical for the Art of tactic game series the plastic is light gray, parts are on 2 sprues.
T-90 has been in the fantasies of a lot of Braille scale folk in the recent years. There was the ACE kit, then more recently the Revell cast and welded turret models. Tracks on all were on the underdetailed side. This set from OKB Grigorov solves the problem.
OKB Grigorov tracks for T-90, set 72111
Now with the Zvezda T-90 out you’d imagine we have the definitive kit with great tracks. Alas, although Zvezda did create an impressive kit, the tracks supplied are extremely tense, and the entire running gear can be snapped away trying to put the track runs on.
The Soviet union started the war with the F-22 and USV divisional guns as the mainstays of its artillery. In 1942 they were replaced by the lighter, faster-firing and more modern ZIS-3 design that was more suited to war time production and maintenance capabilities of the vast country. Over 45,000 guns were built during war years; many were towed, some served on anti-tank SPGs like the SU-76 and SU-76M.
Italeri and UM have already produced kits of the subject, the first one even included crew in winter uniform. My personal opinion is that either kit suffer from oversimplification, so the kit from Zvezda is a welcome addition to the market despite positioned as the wargaming piece that the Italeri rendition is.
Italeri, Heller, and more recently Roden and Dragon have released PAK-40 in 1/72. There have also been wargaming models in the scale.
Italeri’s crew are softer plastic than I like, Dragon’s “bundle” with the PAK-36 and 5 crewfigures is excellent, but hard to find and expensive. Preiser’s 5-member gun crew is similarly elusive, but tops all of them.
The cons above – along with aggressive pricing of about $3 – puts Zvezda’s new set at a very competitive position, despite the crew consisting of just 3 figures. The two sprues are molded in grey and reasonably well-detailed.
Admittedly I couldn’t wait to start building the kit, so here’s a bit of progress.
Detailed add-on armor for the upper glacis with wave deflector and towing hooks added.
On the second image notice the edge that aligns the add-on armor with the upper glacis (parts reversed to showedges).
Exhaust (3 part assembly) glued in place. Another 2-part assembly (fuel tank for laying smoke screen) covers the exhaust on top.
The bulldozer blade added to the lower glacis. The sprue gates are mounted between the actuating arms, so I broke one of them trying to clean the part up…
Announced back in 2013 (or was it 2012?) the expected development of IS-2 is finally here. Please welcome ISU-152 by Zvezda!
Zvezda’s 1/72 ISU-152, kit 5026
Previous Zvezda kits in the scale had sprues on their own inside the box. That made each sound like a baby’s rattle. Parts here are sealed in a soft plastic bag, which prevents parts loss, and makes plastic less prone to breaks.
Zvezda’s 1/72 ISU-152, kit 5026
The ISU-152 is big, grey and bad@$$, and at first sight appears to have a very small amount of parts in common with the IS-2 kit from the past year (which is a very good one if I may say). That’s sort of misleading because there is still a lot from the IS-2 – the sprues are simply re-done and parts are re-arranged for the new machine.
Few aircraft have served in as many roles as the Focke Wulf 190, the famous Butcherbird. the charismatic German WWII superfighter. Intended as a Bf-109 replacement, the 190 served alongside it till the very last day of the war.
Nearly every company that has done a model of WWII aircraft has a FW-190 in its catalog. As is customary decal variants are between 1 and 4, and most feature aircraft of certain ace pilot – e.g. Josef Priller or Hans-Ulrich Rudel. This sheet is no different, and it does feature TWO options for Priller’s mount, but it’s got a few more tricks up its sleeve.
