| Emhar 1/72 A7V Review |
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| Hard to believe the same country that raced through Europe with its panzers
in 1939 was responsible for this ungainly behemoth in 1918. With a crew
of 18(!) and a breakneck top speed of 6 1/2 miles an hour, the A7V
has to remain firmly in history's "What the hell were you thinking?!?"
file. |
| Emhar announced this kit well over a year and a half ago and it finally
arrived from Hannants this morning (30/08/02) courtesy of my somewhat
humourless postman, who I'm sure is as tired of bringing me packages as
I am of him waking me up at the ungodly hour of 9:00am. I don't do mornings.... |
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Clicken for der grossen picturen... |
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| So, was it worth the wait? I would have to say yes, it certainly was.
This is a simple kit of a pretty simple subject - a giant brick on tracks.
Two sprues of dark gray plastic hold 30 nicely moulded parts with subtle
raised rivet detail and recessed panel and door lines. I was a bit disconcerted
at first to see the tracks, wheels and suspension moulded as one complete
unit per side, however on closer inspection these are actually very well
done and as most of it will disappear under the hull anyway I think this
will work quite nicely. |
| The hull bottom has been simplified somewhat as this should be open framework
but unless you're going to display the thing toppled on its side (not
an uncommon fate for the A7V, unsurprisingly) in a diorama I wouldn't
worry too much about it. For the ambitious types that may want to attempt
it there is an excellent picture of Leutnant Stein's "Elfriede"
in just such a position in "Tanks and Trenches" (see references
below) that clearly shows what's under these things. |
| Some small details such as handles are missing from the kit but these
will be easy to add from fine wire or plastic rod. Guns are nicely done
and are designed to swivel and elevate. Crew entry doors and viewports
are moulded closed and there is no interior detail included so you are
on your own if you want to add this and open the doors. |
 Decals
don't look too bad although the white looks like it will be a bit translucent.
The crosses are a bit odd in that the rear and side ones have one arm bigger
than the other three! Curiously this error has been repeated on the artwork
on the back of the box. I don't think these will be a problem to replace
from my oodles of WWl aircraft decals.
You get four decal options. Well, five actually. Two different versions
of 506 "Mephisto" - the happy skull and cross bones on the box
art and a later version with a running devil that appears to be carrying
a surfboard(?!)** under it's arm. The other
choices are 505 "Baden", 507 "Cyklop" and 502. Most
of these are printed in white and don't show up in the scan.
"Mephisto" is the only A7V surviving today out of the 20 built
and is on display at the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, Australia. Pictures
of it may be seen here.
According to this site "Mephisto" was manufactured with machine
gun only armament and the cannon was added later - the mantlet is apparently
different from those that were originally equipped with the cannon. Emhar's
kit has the same mantlet as "Mephisto" so I'm asssuming they used
this tank as their primary source of reference. |
| This is a nicely done kit that should be a fun weekend project and I'm
glad to finally see it in my favourite scale. Rumour has it that Emhar are
also scaling down their 1/35th Whippet tank and in fact, according to the
back of the A7V box, it's already been done! Yes, I'll be having one of
those too Hannants, thank you very much. I'm sure my postman will be ecstatic.... |
References:
Tanks and Trenches
Edited by David Fletcher
Grange Books 1996
Tanks
Eric Morris
Octopus Books 1975
Almost every A7V was different. There is an excellent reference table showing the differences and names of each A7V built at:
www.landships.freeservers.com/a7vident.htm
|
| 16/09/02 - Hey, I actually finished
the thing! |
| ** Just had another
look at the pictures on wwi-models.org. The "surfboard" is actually,
I think, a British tank! Also note the devil should have a black nose and
beard which is not depicted in the kit decals. |
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