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armorscale
20mm FlaK 38
Barrel

armorscale Set #B35-047
Review by Terry Ashley

The Set:
armorscale have released their metal 2cm FlaK38 barrel which consists of an aluminium barrel with front gun housing and separate brass flash suppressor, additional etched parts for the minor details plus a small instruction sheet with the barrel applicable for any of the available FlaK38 kits.

Barrel parts and close-up of flash suppressor
armorscale
armorscale
armorscale

The aluminium barrel includes the front section of the gun housing and small pin for attaching the barrel with the separate brass flash suppressor which includes four larger six holes around the collar section and four rows of six smaller holes in the suppressor cone. There is an issue here as the actual suppressor collar has six or eight larger holes and three or four rows of smaller holes in the suppressor cone and the four collar holes are noticable larger on the armorscale barrel than in the collar with the six holes. Some minor cleanup is required for the flash suppressor which has small burs on the inside from the fine hole drilling process but this is easy to remove with a fine needle file.

Updated May 14, 2005
Additional information shows that there are versions of the FlaK38 flash suppressor with four rows of smaller holes as depicted in this barrel as well as having eight larger holes in the supressor neck, and therefore this barrel is correct with smaller suppressor holes.

There are two small etched fittings for the top of the gun housing section and you have to bend one end of this over itself for the 3D effect and it's good armorscale gave you two parts as these for some reason were some of the slipperiest little suckers I've handled and care will be needed during bending and fitting.

Assembled barrel
armorscale

Fitting the barrel to the Dragon FlaK38 gun from kit #6288 or the Sd.Kfz.251/17 kit #6292 is quite straight forward as the gun is the correct proportions and all that is needed to cut the barrel and housing section from the Dragon gun, drill a small locating hole and attach the armorscale barrel, all very easy.

Fitting barrel to Dragon 2cm FlaK38
armorscale
armorscale

To fit the barrel to the Tristar FlaK38 gun from kit #35010 or Flakpanzer 1A #35019 requires a little more work as the gun is slightly out of proportion to begin with. The overall barrel and gun length is okay, just the barrel and housing sections require reworking and you firstly mark and cut the Tristar barrel level with the metal barrel rear housing.

Cutting the Tristar 2cm FlaK38
armorscale

You will then have to remove the raised collar from the Tristar gun housing as this is a little too far back on the kit gun and it's probably best to remove this before fitting the armorscale barrel for easier working.

armorscale

Drill a small locating hole in the end of the plastic gun housing and attach the metal barrel for the final step and the images below show the armorscale barrel fitted to the Dragon and Tristar 2cm guns and also a comparison with the Adlers Nest 2cm barrel fitted to the Dragon gun and the Tristar gun with the armorscale barrel.

armorscale
armorscale
Conclusion:
This 2cm barrel from armorscale has the correct length barrel but the four larger holes in the flash supressor collar are noticably larger than if there were the correct six holes but other than that the barrel shapes up well and is very easy to assemble and fit to whatever target kit you choose.

Highly recommended.

See a full comparison of available FlaK38 barrels

References:
FlaK382cm FlaK38
Muzzle Reference images
bookGerman 20mm FlaK in WWII
1395-1945

By Werner Müller
Schiffer Military History
ISBN: 0-88740-758-7

Soft cover
47 pages

Panzer TracksLeichter Zugkraftwagen 1t
(Sd.kfz.10) Ausf.A and B and Variants
development and production from 1935 to 1945

Panzer Tracts No.22-1
ISBN 0-9815382-5-8
Thomas L. Jentz and Hilary Louis Doyle

Includes accurate 1:35 plans of the 2cm Flak 30
and 2cm Flak 38 early and late.

bookTamiya Photo Album 4
Tamiya Plastic Model Co.

Krupp Protze
Flak30, Flak38

book2cm FlaK 30/38 Sfl
Sd.Kfz.10/4

Wydawnictwo Militaria 172
Thanks to Robert from armorscale for the review set.



Page created April 22, 2006
Updated May 14, 2006