Here's another 'Limited Release' from Cyber Hobby! This time up it's the Tauchpanzer IV Ausf.D. Well worth looking closely at!

Cyber Hobby Tauchpanzer IV Ausf.D



If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Thanks for the review Vinnie, I signed up for the pre-order for this one the moment it was announced.

Nice one Vinnie Another must have for the mk IV stash!!
Hope you get one Bill,I ordered two IV B's from C-H never got them
had one email saying my order was being processed(about six months ago) I cancelled the order(still no reply from them)and got one from Lucky model
Andy

Torchy, I had a similar delay on my Panther Stadtgas and when I asked about it by email I found out it was being held up by DragonUSA because I'd also ordered a Lion Roar set at the same time that was on Back Order. Cancelled the PE set and had the Panther kit on my doorstep within 3 days. If I hadn't asked though, I bet it would've just hung in limbo.

DML or Tristar... What to do, what to do... :-)

I will be eager to see some comparison reviews when both are available. For those of us who can probably only swing one kit right now, it's tearing me up that they have been released simultaneously (gentle sobbing).


Dave

Excellent review, Vinnie. Cyber-Hobby went full tilt on this one. I already ordered one for myself, and i cant wait to get it

May have to be even more daring and go for a 2nd kit

Prost !!

Robert

Too bad that they don't make these extra parts avaliable as add-ons... It would much more cost-effective for the modeller...

Andras, I understand what you mean, but you could say the same about any manufacturer that makes more than one version of a kit.


Vinnie

True, but in this case it's really a few parts only... They did that to the smart kits (issuing extra parts to "beef them up" -although it really defeated the whole purpose of "smart".) I just wish I didn't have to buy a $100 DAK Tiger, but had the choice to buy a "DAK-pack" for, let's say, $20. (Still 2/3rd of the price of the original Tiger kits.)
But considering the amount of detail and extras DML already including in their kits, I can't really complain. There are thousand other things to build

Thanks for the review Vinnie.

From what I can see in Sprue W, most of the details for the Tauchpanzer are incorrect.

1. The pipe that goes around the bottom edge of the turret should be a round in profile not flat.
2. The covers for the engine vents are incorrect in shape and lack detail (could the detail be on the reverse side?)
4. The cover for the main gun has the wrong shape
5. Most Tauchpanzers carried a wooden beam on top of the right fender. The frame is not provided in the kit.
6. The kit lacks the brake access hatch locks that are unique to Tauchpanzers
7. The divisional marking is incorrect lacking detail. There should be two eyes and a nose in the white circle. The white border should be less angular, wider and not have the black outer border. The detail of the sea is also wrong.

These are my observations based on the photos in the review and I need to look at the kit to be absolutely sure.

Lawrence Quah

Well Lawrence, I guess you're going to have to buy one to be absolutely sure! :-)
May I ask what references? I can't find very many at all? If we could only get Thomas Anderson here!
Vinnie

*EDIT* I'll get it out again in the morning and take close ups of the parts you mentioned? Including the other side of those brake access hatches.

Vinnie

I compared the kit parts to photos that I collected. Here are some of them.

1. The pipe that goes around the bottom edge of the turret should be a round in profile not flat.

This is the most noticeable mistake in the Dragon kit. The photos speak for themselves.



Close up photo. The Dragon kit also does not have the vertical pipe.



2. The covers for the engine vents are incorrect in shape and lack detail (could the detail be on the reverse side?)

If you look at the engine vent covers, there are ribs on it. Also note that there are no retaining clips on the vent sides to hold the covers when closed




3. The cover for the main gun has the wrong shape.

Also note that there is a protrusion in the cover for the co-axial MG.





4. Most Tauchpanzers carried a wooden beam on top of the right fender. The frame for the wooden frame is not provided in the kit.

Of interest is the balkencruz painted on to the wooden beam



5. The kit lacks the brake access hatch locks that are unique to Tauchpanzers

This is the same photo that Dragon used to market this kit. If you look closely at the brake access hatch you can see the locks. It's T-shaped and swivels to lock the brake access hatch. This photo also gives a good look at the rubber mantlet cover. Note the vision slot in the cover.

Again, we can see the MG cover as part of the mantlet cover.



6. The divisional marking is incorrect lacking detail. There should be two eyes and a nose in the white circle. The white border should be less angular, wider and not have the black outer border. The detail of the sea is also wrong.

Even from this distance, you can tell that the Dragon decal is incorrect.





I am not sure if I will buy this kit as we have to buy both the Stadgas Panther and Tauchpanzer as a set. You can not buy them separately. You pay upfront and you get the Panther within a week and the Tauchpanzer in 1 month.

I look forward to more photos of the Tauchpanzer parts.

Lawrence Quah

Dave,

I am halfway through building the Tristar kit and I got to say that the Tristar kit has nailed it with this kit. All the points that I raised earlier has been done accurately by Tristar.

Lawrence Quah

Thanks for posting these Lawrence! The pipe at the bottom of the turrte is actually an inflatable ring, and when deployed would be sqeezed beteen the hull top and turret bottom, so I actually think this is something Dragon got right, since the flat part shown on the sprues would just represent the part of the ring squeezed out? Granted it should have had a slightly more 'bulbous' appearnce I agree, so it's probably best replaced with a 'sausage' of milliput!
After examining the instructions, it does appear that that pipe is missing too.
There is a rib pattern of detail on the other side of the engine covers, yes.
There is also a slight difference in the rubber sheet covering the gun and mantlet from the one in those pictures, but it's only a slight difference, and in a rubber sheet...... so theirs could be correct too, I'd like to see their references on that one.
Most Tauchpanzers carried a wooden beam? Does that mean you have pictures of some that didn't? In which case Dragon's is correct then? It's difficult because if there was a difference in dimensions or somthing that would have been standardized, then we could say quite definately that Dragon were wrong, but in some of these it's less definite, since it looks like they could have references for the one that they have modelled? I wish somebody from Dragon would come on and show their references!
Thanks Lawrence!

Vinnie

Vinnie

The bracket that holds the inflatable ring does not go round the ring. The DML part shows vertical lines across the ring. I do not know whether this is meant to represent the bracket or as part of the ring (in which case then the bracket would be nissing). Sorry, if I am not explaining it well enough.

I noticed that the vent covers are of different shape to the Tristar kit. I do not have photos to show which is correct. Here is the Tristar part.



The 4th and 5th photo shows vehicle #1232 and has the wooden beam and different mantlet/gun cover (more common?). DML provides decals for #1233. If they are from the same company, it would most probably have the same equipment.

I agree that we need to see the references that DML used for this kit. As DML used photo #7 for the pre-release marketing, I would have thought that they would have used this as reference for the kit.

Most of the photos I have show the items I raised and leads me to believe that they were standardised to a certain extent. But we can never be 100% sure.

This is #331. Is this the same as the one in the kit? On this vehicle, the wooden beam is not there. I suspect that the wooden beam was either used on early Tauchpanzers or were unique for asome companies.


Tristar provides markings for number #632, #933 and #231. The wooden beam, turret inflatable ring, mantlet/gun cover and brake access hatch locks provided in Tristar kit are correct for these markings.

For this discussion, I have just focused on the Tauchpanzer parts and not touched on the base Pz IVD kit as this has been covered by Terry Ashley at PMMS. I believe that there were some minor points raised by Terry.

Lawrence

Lawrence, here's a pic of the inside of the engine intake grill covers, and Cyber Hobby does appear to have simplified them a touch too much, not that it will matter if you choose to model them sealed up!




Here's one of the MG cover built:



Finally, here's the mantlet, and there does seem to be a protuberance for the Coaxial MG:


So although it would appear that Cyber Hobby have oversimplified a touch in certain areas, given everything that you get in the box, I'd still go for the Cyber Hobby one!

Vinnie

Thanks for sharing the detail shots Vinnie.

On the hull MG cover, it seems that there are bolts around the rim. The clear part is a nice touch though.





And the tip of the hull MG cover is slightly wider than the body. Like a cylinder with a slightly wider diameter end rubber circle. (Confused yet )

Also, it looks like the cover for the co-axial MG sticks out more.



More like this


I see that there are two types of sprockets provided. Make sure you use the correct one. The good thing though is that the CH kit provides the turret basket as some Tauchpanzers had them.

Lawrence
:)

Hey guys.. the wood beam on the IV's was known as a "Un-Ditching Beam". (And I don’t think all Tauch's had them... just as not all C's, D's, or E's had them... and any version thereafter....)

It's also looks like it’s going to be included on the next Panzer IV Ausf. E Update from Dragon!.....

-Chris