Blast from the (recent) past
Posted: Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:03 pm
In the mail today came a great e-bay find: a 21C 1/32 Stug IV model kidt for $12 shipped! 
I have the ambush release from the old super playset but have wanted to get one with the schurtzen for some time. I felt a bit of nostalgia as I put this together as I remembered the early days of 1/32. If I recall this was the ninth AFV release after the Sherman, Hellcat, Stuart, WB, Tiger, Panther, Sdkfz halftrack and 222 armored car.
It got me thinking that 21C has always done some surprise vehicles in their 1/32 line. Of these first nine the WB, 222 and Stug IV are surprising. If I had a company and was planning my first nine releases in what was essentially a new scale none of these three would have been on my radar screen. Even more surprising is the long gap between when the Stug IV and Pz IV were released.
This old mold is not nearly as detailed as the new releases but I did get a warm fuzzy feeling when I felt the cold steel heft as I pulled it out of the box. I feel the schurtzen really add to the appearance of the model. Of course the hatches open on spaces too tight to fit the two included crewmen (Yeah!) and are terribly shallow to boot. The saukopf mantlet is not sitting square and even more interesting is the bottom half of the model is painted in the S1 ambush pattern. It has been touched up at the rear of the model, but not the front. The only thing I can think of is either they had prepainted bottoms without tops or they sent these things through for a quick repaint.
Anyway, this was a blast from the past and wanted to share. I recommend if you don't have one of these, find them now as they are not as common as they once were.
I have the ambush release from the old super playset but have wanted to get one with the schurtzen for some time. I felt a bit of nostalgia as I put this together as I remembered the early days of 1/32. If I recall this was the ninth AFV release after the Sherman, Hellcat, Stuart, WB, Tiger, Panther, Sdkfz halftrack and 222 armored car.
It got me thinking that 21C has always done some surprise vehicles in their 1/32 line. Of these first nine the WB, 222 and Stug IV are surprising. If I had a company and was planning my first nine releases in what was essentially a new scale none of these three would have been on my radar screen. Even more surprising is the long gap between when the Stug IV and Pz IV were released.
This old mold is not nearly as detailed as the new releases but I did get a warm fuzzy feeling when I felt the cold steel heft as I pulled it out of the box. I feel the schurtzen really add to the appearance of the model. Of course the hatches open on spaces too tight to fit the two included crewmen (Yeah!) and are terribly shallow to boot. The saukopf mantlet is not sitting square and even more interesting is the bottom half of the model is painted in the S1 ambush pattern. It has been touched up at the rear of the model, but not the front. The only thing I can think of is either they had prepainted bottoms without tops or they sent these things through for a quick repaint.
Anyway, this was a blast from the past and wanted to share. I recommend if you don't have one of these, find them now as they are not as common as they once were.