ESCI Panzer III Series

Till Huber previously wrote a very nice article comparing the ESCI and Revell Panzer III Ausf. M kits. Since I am catching up on reviewing several of my old ESCI kits, I thought I would write a companion article previewing all three of ESCI's Panzer III variants.

Pz.Kpfw. III Ausf. M

ESCI # 8001; ESCI/Revell # H2300; ESCI/Ertl # 8324

This is one of ESCI's very early kits, and although it was very well done for its day, it wasn't one of their best. I've always felt that the detail was fairly soft and rounded, and could have been much sharper. The fenders in particular are weak, with many of the pioneer tools molded onto them in very poor relief. The tow cable is molded onto the rear hull, and will be almost impossible to remove without ruining the engine deck. The wheels are mediocre. Note that ESCI's later Stug III kit has different wheels than this Panzer III series, and are much better than these. The idler wheel is molded as a single wheel, but I think that some later editions of this model included added idler wheels, which were much improved. Sprue 1 contains the cannon barrels for both this version, and the Flammpanzer.

Sprue 1Sprue 2

The tracks are horrible, of course, unless you buy the ESCI/Ertl version of the kit, which includes hard styrene link and length track, which are actually quite decent (although the inner surface is bare). Note that the hard plastic tracks are the same tracks as included with ESCI's Panzer IV kits.

The decals in my kits are typical of ESCI, i.e., fairly poor. The decal sheet in the ESCI/Ertl release includes markings for only a single vehicle, but the earlier ESCI release had four options.

Although a nice kit for its day, this model in no way compares with the new Revell Panzer III M.

Flammpanzer III

ESCI # 8057; ESCI/Revell # H2358; ESCI/Ertl # 8327;

As far as model parts are concerned, this kit is identical to the Ausf. M kit. The builder is to use a different gun barrel that is already included with the previous kit. But the decals are different. A single series of vehicle numbers is included, which is quite useless if you want to number a tank with repeating digits (such as 122). Crosses are included for two tanks, and divisional markings are included for four units.

Pz.Kpfw. III Ausf. M/N

This kit is similar to the Ausf. M kit, but with an additional sprue of parts included:

This sprue contains schurzen armor plates (and brackets), as well as a 75mm L/24 cannon for the Ausf. N version. I find it curious that the boxart actually depicts an Ausf. M with schurzen plates (which this kit can also build into, because the previous gun barrels are still included). Even though these Ausf. N support tanks were converted from several versions, such as Ausf. J, L or M, this kit obviously represents one converted from an Ausf. M.

My Ausf. N kit has no decals, but I assume that they are similar to the previous examples.