Howitzer prod.1937 152mm
#MP 3512
Review by Terry Ashley
The barrel is finely turned in two pieces with the barrel in aluminium and the muzzle brake in brass with the vents cut into the sides as well as two small holes each side of the collar and being a separate part is completely hollow, also featured is the step part way down the barrel with a slight bevel as seen on many 152mm barrels. The two parts fit precisely together to form the barrel which is then ready to add to the kit.
Fitting to the Eastern Express kit:
The barrel fits directly into the Eastern Express mantlet (part 13)
without any modifications required, nothing could be easier. The kit mantlet
has a couple of detail issues but that's another story.
If you wanted to use this barrel with the Dragon kit 6803 "Chinese JSU-152 Howitzer" you will need to widen the hole in the mantlet as the Dragon barrel is noticeably smaller both in diameter and length compared to the Modelpoint barrel which is the correct size when compared to available 1/35 plans. To widen the mantlet opening will be quite difficult due to the shape of the mantlet which doesn't take kindly to straight drilling.
Overall a nicely rendered barrel that will add considerably to the final appearance of the KV-14 kit.
Highly recommended.
Thanks to Dmitriy from Model Point US for the review sample.
The ARMO barrel is in one piece with the vents cut into the muzzle
brake although the metal is quite thick and the actual vent opening is only
about 1/3rd the length of cut which is quite noticable while the barrel is
the same size as the Modelpoint barrel also making it correct.
This barrel is designed for the Eastern Express KV-14 kit and fits
directly to the kit mantlet without any modification and the same comments
apply if you want to use this barrel on the Dragon kit.
The Hot Barrels barrel is designed for the Dragon kit and is
therefore incorrect in diameter and length while the resin muzzle brake needs
a fair
bit of cleaning
up of the vents some of which are not formed at all, and to add to the worries
there are also some internal air bubbles on my sample waiting to be exposed
as you open out the vent holes. As a bonus you do get a nicely cast resin mantlet
with nice cast texture and the correct number of large bolt heads, although
two bolts had large air holes maring the appearance.
This mantlet as you would expect is designed to take the undersized Hot
Barrels barrel and to use either the Modelpoint or ARMO barrel would require
the tricky operation of widening the locating hole to accept the correct diameter
barrels. This set highlights the problem with some aftermatket sets where they
just replicate inaccurate kit parts when there is a perfect oppertunity to
provide the correct size parts.
The final conclusion is that the Modelpoint barrel takes the points with the ARMO not far behind but the muzzle brake vents are a negative while you can forget the Hot Barrels effort unless you are happy to replace an incorrect kit barrel with an incorrect metal barrel as well as the work needed to open up the vents in the muzzle brake.
Page Created 23 May 2004