F. Giovagnorio Armory Lowe

The Panzerkampfwagen VII Löwe(Lion) is, among all the so-called "paper panzers", one of those which came really close to effective production. It was originally designed by Krupp in the early months of 1942 as Pz.Kpfw. VII Löwe (VK7201). Designers planned to build two variants of this vehicle: light (leichte) variant would have frontal armor protection of 100mm and it would weight 76 tons. Heavy (schwere) variant would have frontal armor protection of 120mm and it would weight 90 tons. Both variants would be armed with 105mm L/70 gun and coaxial machine gun. It is known that 90ton schwere Löwe was to have its turret mounted centrally and in overall design resembled future Tiger II. In late 1942, this project was cancelled in favour of the development of the Maus. Judging from blueprints, the tank proposed by Armory, having a central turret, is the leichte Löwe. This vehicle gained quite a bit of popularity in the famous World of Tanks (WoT) online multiplayer game, so that Armory provides a "historical" and a WoT version (with different muzzle brakes and engine hatches on the back panel).
Packaging On opening the box, you find 6 large sprues in light grey plastic and a small bag containing another sprue with tools, 1 PE set, a turned metal barrel and 1 small set of decals with some tiny german crosses.	On the box, you can see a yellow sticker reading "retooled kit". In fact, the earlier kit had some issues which were pointed out in a review on Armorama, notably the absence of PE grills for the engine deck and the rubber tracks. Armory decided to withdraw the kit and re-release it in a new version, with a larger PE sheet and hard plastic tracks. Well done Armory !

The parts Detail on the parts is good, although not exceptional. Flash is minimal.



Some preliminary observations The engine deck is certainly a weak spot, with many casting imperfections, and it was not corrected during retooling; however, the grills can be covered with the supplied PE parts, so Armory found an elegant way to circumvent the problem. Detail on the inner tracks is rather soft but more than sufficient.

Instruction manual The instruction sheet is very simple, with 7 steps and the occasional request to the modeller to scratchbuild some very fine parts.
____--- -___----__
Conclusions Obviously a kit of interest to the "what-if" or WoT guys. Everyone else can certainly have fun building the vehicle and trying some interesting late-war painting scheme.
Review sample provided by Armory

Back to Armory Kit List
Article Last Updated: 20 June 2017	Back to Home Page