German Panzerjäger 39(H) mit 7.5cm PaK40/1 Marder I
Trumpeter Kit No. 00354
1/35th Scale
Review by Terry Ashley

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This kit consists of 219 parts in light beige plastic plus two full length “rubber band” type vinyl tracks and a small decal sheet. The quality of the moulding is overall quite good but there are some pin marks on a number of parts that will need attention, such as on the insides of the superstructure walls and on the back of the road and idler wheels but these can be positioned facing inwards and out of sight.
The kit shares the same lower hull tub, running gear and track as the other H39 kits and sprue F with kit #00353 with two new sprues (H,K) for the PaK40 parts.

Note that the construction images shown here are for Kit #00353 but as this kit shares the same parts they also apply to this kit with any minor alterations noted, which as basically the different gun and ammo racks on the inside of the rear compartment.

Lower Hull / Suspension:
The lower hull tub has the front and rear panels included and at the front is the large HOTCHKISS name casting which is very prominent on these vehicles while on the inside is floor details and a rear bulkhead to help keep everything square. The final drive housings and idler wheel mounts are separate parts as are the two return rollers per side plus simple attachments points for the suspension bogies.

The six suspension bogie units are made up of eight parts each with quite good details but the upper springs are a little fine and some may wish to replace with thicker wire for a better appearance? The drive sprockets include the characteristic dome shape but unfortunately the central bolt heads and drive teeth are undersized but may not be that noticeable on the finished kit?

There are two idler wheels provided, one with ribs and the other smooth and the instructions indicate to use the ribbed wheels on the kit but I’ve seen photos with both types so you have choice here.

Construction of the bogies was a little tricky as there is no actual locating point for the top mounted springs and these were simply glued to the rear bogie plate at the appropriate place level with the moulded on attachment bolts on the outside of the bogie plates.
The wheels are designed to rotate when trapped between the front and rear bogie plates but there are only a couple of small attachment points for the two bogie plates and the top brackets (part A15) have to be positioned over the two bogie plates at the same time as positioning the wheels which was all very tricky and I ended up gluing the wheels in place which made for a mush more robust assembly and as the drive sprocket and idler wheels are only designed to be glued in place gluing the wheels is not an issue. What is an issue is the fitting of the bogie units to the hull, the locating pin on the hull fits into the corresponding hole on the back of the bogie bracket (part A15) which also has a small L bracket to fit under the bottom of the hull for support, unfortunately the hole on part A15 didn’t line up precisely with the pin on the hull and required some trimming of the bracket (part A15) to get the bogies to sit correctly on the hull, this isn’t a real hassle as after trimming the bracket they then fitted okay and at the same height.

The lower hull tub has a basic interior with rear engine bulkhead and drive tunnel to the front gearbox and a basic driver’s seat and this forms part of the interior once the new superstructure is fitted and can be assembled as per instructions without any problems.

The PaK40 Anti-Tank Gun:
This gun has all the basic parts included but are quite basic when compared to the recent PaK40 kits from AFV Club and Dragon, both in their basic gun and the Sd.Kfz.251/22 kits.

The gun cradle lacks effective bolt head details on the outside of the cradle and has no details on the inside of the cradle as included on the other PaK40 kits. The two side trunnion mountings are again quite basic in detail compared to the other kits and the hand wheels are quite chunky while the left side breech guard has an "odd" shape to the guard mountings and the other gun details are on the basic side.

The 7.5cm gun itself has the plastic barrel split vertically with a nicely detailed breech with separate breech block but the instructions show the end plate on the block the wrong way around and some minor trimming will be needed to fit the block into the breech. The barrel is the correct length but the muzzle brake is way undersized with incorrect profile and details, this is most noticeable when compared to the excellent muzzle brakes in the AFV Club and Dragon kits.

The gun shields have beveled edges for a better thickness appearance and includes the two outer shield panels.

Superstructure:
The two main superstructure walls are the same as for kit #00353 and are moulded as one piece which eliminates any join seam problems but there are quite a few pin marks but thankfully only two are visible after all the inside parts are attached. The inside of the rear panel and separate doors also have substantial pin marks that have to be filled as they are all visible after assembly.

On the inside of the side walls are separate inner panels for the front walls to replicate the spaced panels with accessories added while on the walls are the large rear ammo boxes and MG ammo racks plus the large radio rack on the left wall. The small bracket on the rear of the left ammo box needs about 1mm trimmed to allow the engine compartment floor to fit properly.
At the front of both sides some trimming of parts was needed to allow the proper fitting of the inside front panels, on the left part F17 was trimmed to miss the radio and on the right the end of the MG ammo rack was trimmed to miss part F22.
Careful note should be taken as to the location of the side brackets (parts F32 and F21) as it can be a bit confusing where they should go.

After adding the interior parts you then fit together the two side panels, real panel and engine compartment floor and after trimming the bracket on the left ammo box these parts fitted together very well with no apparent gaps or other issues. One thing I did do was fit the front driver’s plate (part F30) at this point to ensure the correct alignment of the side panels, also note that part F31 fits above part F30 at the front.

The fenders were then added to the bottom of the superstructure assembly and again these fitted well without any issues and the gun mounting platform was also glued to the inside sponsons and allowed to dry.

Final assembly:
The fit of the assembled superstructure to the lower hull tub was again very good without any gaps or other issues and the front glacis plate was added which required the front join seam eliminated and there were two slight gaps either side between the glacis and superstructure that will need filling. At the rear the exhaust pipe was a hit and miss affair with no locating points and one exhaust “leg” hung out over the rear hull contours with no where to go and some minor trimming was needed on the bottom of the “legs” to get a flush sit on the rear panel.

The gun was attached to the mounting plate and stayed in place without glue allowing traverse if required and the two side gun shield hinged plates were added. It was easy to remove the gun assembly at any time that will help with painting and the MG34 mounting on the right wall is fitted, the MG34 is okay but not as detailed as the weapons in the AFV Club and Dragon Sd.Kfz.251 kits released recently.

MG34

Additional items such as the pioneer tools are added around the vehicle and as with most kit tools will benefit from etched tool clips, while the NOTEK light is very basic and could do with replacing as is the rear tail light and finally the rear fenders are added

As a bonus there are two standing crew figures included, a Commander and gunner figure that have quite good details and could be posed inside or outside of the model.

Tracks:
The tracks are full length vinyl and have quite well defined details on both sides and should look okay on the finished kit, the instructions show to fit these before attaching the upper and lower hull parts as there is not a lot of room under the fenders is fitted later.

Decals:
The small decal sheet has three German crosses only with no other markings with two three colour cam schemes shown on the instruction sheet.

Conclusion:
Overall a nice little kit with mostly good fit of parts but a rather basic PaK40 gun and while the kit has most of the basic items there is much scope for additional detailing inside and out.

The kit should be welcomed by German vehicle fans and it remains to be seen how it stacks up against the soon to be released Bronco Models kit.

Recommended.

References:
Marder III
Kagero Photosniper 13
George Parada, Wojciech Styrna, Stanislaw Jablonski. ISBN 83-89088-03-7

Thanks to my credit card and for the review kit.

Page created 7 December 2004