Mirage Hobby Panther A Early and Tiger 1 Late resin zimmerit kits

by Lester Plaskitt

From Poland come two new resin zimmerit kits for Dragon's early Panther A and Tamiya's late Tiger 1. But what sets these apart from other resin and etch brass zimmerit kits is the inclusion of a set of photo etch intake grills, decals for five individual vehicles and full colour instructions giving details of each vehicle's unit and illustrations of individual camouflage schemes that compliment the decal options. Packaged in stout cardboard boxes with a colour illustration of the contents, inside you find some of the thinnest sheets of resin I have seen that have the zimmerit panels moulded into them. The Panther set has the common tile pattern as seen on many Panthers, whilst the Tiger set has the more traditional horizontal pattern. Both patterns are well defined but not overly uniform giving a field application appearance: the Tiger pattern has the characteristic heavier and slightly bigger ridges on the turret with smaller pattern on the hull. Solid resin mantlets are supplied with the appropriate zimmerit application and the Panther set also includes a set of rear stowage bins: some care may be needed in removing the casting gates, which are on the bottom of the parts and may need the zimmerit pattern touching up with some filler – but this won't be taxing. The instructions recommend gently heating the resin to make it slightly malleable then cutting the panels from the backing sheet with a scalpel, but if you are unsure of cutting around the panel's outer edge it may pay to cut slightly over and trim the excess lip once the resin has been fixed to the model. The resin panels can be fixed with superglue or epoxy glues (the epoxy glues will give you more time to get the resin panels in place and can be spread more evenly on the resin without fear of it going off to quick). Once applied the zimmerit can be battle-damaged by chipping at it with a sharp blade – something that would be difficult with etch zimmerit – and finally a wipe of filler may be need to tidy up the edges. The etch grill covers are very neatly done having the correct wire woven pattern, and the decals are well printed but will need a bit of trimming to eliminate the carrier film and also a lot of decal solution to get them to conform to the zimmerit. The colour instructions and illustration give advice on application of the resin panels and five full colour camouflage schemes. The Panther set showing vehicles from the SS Wiking Division and the Tiger set showing vehicles from SS.Pz Abt.101 in Normandy 1944 including vehicles operated by Michael Wittman. With the extra etch parts and colour illustrations these two sets represent excellent value for any modeller wishing to build either of these German vehicles but not wishing to add the zimmerit coating using model putties. Highly recommended.

For more information contact mirage@mirage-hobby.com or visit the website at www.mirage-hobby.com.pl