Before diving back into my larger projects, I thought that I'd tackle Dragon's recent 72nd scale kit, the Sd.Kfz.261 Kleiner Panzerfunkwagen.
Following the 221, 222, and 223, the 260 and 261 were the fourth and fifth types of armored cars built on the "standard chassis for heavy passenger cars." They had four-wheel drive and armor designed to protect against AP bullets. The screens on top were intended to keep out hand grenades.
The 260 and 261 had no mounted armament. Instead, they were outfitted with long-range radio sets. The 260's radio sets operated in the same frequency band as those used in aircraft. The 261's were high-powered radio sets used for long-range communication with other headquarters.
A total of 483 Sd.Kfz.260s and 261s were completed between April 1941 and April 1943.
The kit itself is molded in Dragon's usual grey styrene. This kit only includes one vehicle whereas Dragon's previous offerings in this series included two. Given that, I expected something special in the kit . . . perhaps some nice PE or added details. Not only is there no PE, but the screens are rather heavily molded in plastic. I guess Dragon figured that since nothing could be seen through the screens that it wasn't necessary to include them in PE. Oh, well. From what I can tell, the kit does include new front fenders and has what appears to be a rather nice mast antenna. All in all, the molding appears to be finely done with little to no flash.
To give you some idea as to the size of this vehicle, here's a photo of both the lower and upper hull with a U.S. quarter:
On to construction!
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