Simplicity has its own beauty. This kit is both, simple and beautiful. It depicts the very early version of the KV-1 tank, a monster that baffled the German Panzers and, if it had been used properly, could have posed serious problems for Operation Barbarossa. As it was they were fittered away in penny-packets and had small impact.
Zvezda has again chosen to opt for the very early war version and modeled the tank with the early short 76mm gun. That makes this kit your go-to model if you are building a Winter War or early-war force. As usual the model is crisply cast and is nearly devoid of flash, Below we see the parts freed from the sprue. Honestly, it took longer to cut the parts out and clean up the flow-channels than it took to build the kit.
All of the parts are designed in sugh a way that there is only one way that they will fit together, making assembly errors nearly impossible. I was intrigued, and slightly concerned, when I saw how the turret had been sectioned up to allow it to snap together but my fears were groundless as the parts fit flawlessly. I had decided to give the "snap-together" thing a try and used no glue during the assembly of this model, look at the photos and decide for yourself if the gaps are too large.
the parts, all six of them
A great addition to the rapidly growing field of 1/100 scale plastics.
Very highly recommended, John
Great review, I was thinking of starting a KV-1 based Heavy Tank regiment for my first flames of war army (I blame world of tanks!) this kit caught my eye and your review and photos make it look like an excellent model. I will probably pick up most of my stuff from the PSC/Zvezda as the official FoW resin/metal thing just doesn't do it for me.
ReplyDeleteThe prices are great too, you can own a regiment of these Zvezda babies for the price of a Battlefront company, and you can have them all built in an afternoon! I find that the plastic kits are just sooooo much "crisper", the edges and lines are straight and sharp.
ReplyDeleteExcept for the oddball stuff I won't go back to lead or resin.
Well I purchased a couple of boxes this morning. Also wrote a short blog about it with a link to your site (as it gave me some great info on an unknown product)hope you don't mind.
ReplyDeletehttp://mctgaming.blogspot.com/
Anytime that a reader wishes to link to an article or the entire blog they are more than welcome to do so. I will have a little more free time after the middle of January and I was thinking of putting the blogs of the followers into an article and then linking directly to them from the sidebar. Are you OK with that? I think it would help create a bit more lateral communication within the hobby.
ReplyDeletesounds good to me.
ReplyDelete