Sturmpanzer IV Brummbär

ESCI Kit 8065; ESCI/Revell # H2366; Humbrol # HK72210; ESCI/Ertl #8307; ESCI/Ertl # 8311

I have always liked this kit. It's one of the first ESCI kits I built, and considering its age, it is a remarkably well made model. Like many of ESCI's kits, it is based on their rather poor Panzer IV kit, but it comes with a completely new upper hull with an integral superstructure. Most of the surface detail is first-rate, with some minor exceptions such as tools molded onto the hull, and overly long front fenders. All the crew hatches are molded open, which is unusual, even for kits molded more recently than this one (actually, older kits tend to be better at this than most newer ones). Some extra parts are included as holdovers from the Panzer IV kit, but many have been removed from the sprues for some reason. Too bad; the extra parts would have been nice to have. This is a remarkably accurate kit, and represents the mid-version of this assault gun.

Sprue 1Sprue 2Sprue 3 frontSprue 3 back

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).

The decals in my kit are typical of ESCI, i.e., fairly poor (the crosses are not printed in register, and the red ink on the numbers had bled through the white). The decal sheet in the ESCI/Ertl release includes markings for only a single vehicle; I am not sure about earlier releases.

This is a very nice kit, though it has been out of production for quite some time. Hopefully it is in the future re-release plans of Italeri.