Foreword
This article was started nineteen years ago, but for various reasons it was never published. One of those reasons is that I (Rob) actually wanted to build both the ESCI and the UM kits, and both projects took far longer than expected. Jason also took out his calipers and discovered several interesting discrepancies. Even so, the article could have been finished more than half a decade ago. On the upside, the Vespid kit was released in the meantime, which allowed it to be included in this comparison.
Measurements are based on the G-13 in the Royal Military Museum in Brussels, with the help of Philippe Bonnet. Although it is not a true Hetzer (insofar as any vehicle we now call a Hetzer can truly be called one), it shares the same basic dimensions.

Additional information on Hetzer kits can be found in Stephen Brezinski's article.

Measurements

Unfortunately, we were unable to reliably measure the overall length.
When the UM kit was released, there was much discussion about the ESCI kit being too narrow and the UM kit being accurate. While there is indeed a substantial difference in width between the two kits, the situation is more nuanced, assuming our measurements are correct.

Esci on the left; UM on the right.

It seems that the ESCI hull is indeed too narrow, but at the same time the UM kit is too wide. To complicate matters, the lower hull of the ESCI kit is actually too wide, resulting in a rear plate that is almost rectangular, whereas it should have a pronounced trapezoidal taper.
Interestingly, the Vespid kit is also too narrow, but this is partially offset by slightly oversized fenders.

The following points were important enough to highlight:

• The Vespid road wheels are overscale, while the UM ones are underscale. The ESCI wheels are the most accurate.
• The ESCI drive sprocket is overscale.
• Almost all kits have insufficient spacing between the road wheels, with Vespid being the worst, showing almost no spacing at all.
• The Vespid tracks are too wide, while the UM tracks are too narrow.
• The roof dimensions of almost all kits are oversized.

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