Stephen Brezinski ACE French 25-mm Anti Tank Gun

ACE's typical wonderful box art shows nice detail of the gun with the split trails folded for the towing mode. The tires are pneumatic rubber. At right on the ground is what I presume to be an ammunition box which is included in the model kit. Under the gun barrel appears to be a barrel travel lock for holding the barrel when the weapon is being towed. Protruding through the shield is a telescopic gun sight. I find it interesting that while the larger 47-mm SA Model 1937 gun had solid rubber tires, this smaller gun has pneumatic tires, The Kit Parts The ACE Models Kit 72523, French 25-mm Anti Tank Gun, Model 1934 comes with 22 light gray, injection molded, styrene plastic parts on one sprue. Molding detail looks good.
On the far left side of the sprue is the one piece gun barrel, recoil system and breach (part-1). Because of the scale and nature of the plastic and molding, the gun barrel is a little thick for the scale and we could replace it with a piece of brass rod. Remember to reattach the flash suppressor if you do. To the left we see the back of the gun shield (part-14) with two long vertical boxes; these boxes I have not yet found in my reference photos. I noted some flash around part-18, the gunner's recoil guard. For a nice display model you might wish to scratch build this recoil guard out of fine brass wire. Some of the parts are a little soft around the edges. The only sink holes I noted are in the sprue frame, but better on the sprue than on the actual parts. While many ACE artillery kits supply rounds of ammunition, the 25-mm rounds for this gun would be pretty small so ACE gives us an ammunition box (part-10).
ACE's assembly instructions are the exploded view type which is typical of ACE kits and many model makers. The instructions look clear and complete. On the reverse side of this instruction page is a parts diagram and painting guide for a British, a German and a French operated gun. Like many artillery pieces, there are no markings evident, so no decals included in the model kit.
References http://www.onthewaymodels.com/reviews/ACE/DTaylor_Ace_72523_review.htm An nice assembly review of this ACE model by Dan Taylor. NRC also produces a small scale model of a Hotchkiss 25mm AT Gun Pak 112(f) NRC kit 7299, and a review can be found at http://www.onthewaymodels.com/reviews/NRC/Hotchkiss25mmprev.htm Many other reference photos can be found with a web search. Preview sample purchased by the author.

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Article Last Updated: 27 September 2014