Part 1: First Look

MSRP: Estimated $20 Attack Hobby Website: www.attack-hobby-kits.cz . Attack Hobby Kits has a large number of well detailed 1/72 scale armor kits that are mostly Czech built vehicles including the 35(t) series tanks, the 38(t) series tanks, and Tatra staff cars. The newest kit in their 1/72 scale series is the Jagdpanzer 38(t) Starr. It looks a lot like a Hetzer, but it is a little bit different. The "Starr" is a Hetzer built with a main armament of a 75mm Pak 39 rigidly mounted recoilless gun. Due to the limited number of Pak 39 guns available, only 14 of these tanks were ever produced. Differences from the Hetzer tanks were to accommodate the different type of gun. Most of the differences in the tank were on the rear deck. Inside the box, you'll find 76 injection molded parts (1 gray upper hull and 75 other beige colored parts) and 19 gray resin parts. All of the kit parts have crisp detail with very little flash. It appears that about 1/2 of the injection molded parts will be used for this kit. The directions are made from one 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper and the text is black and white. Although simple directions, there doesn't appear to be any confusion as to where the parts go or what colors to paint them. The one piece upper hull looks like the "Starr" upper hull. The hatches are where they need to be, and the prominent "Starr" features of the rear deck appear to be the correct size and shape. The tracks are of the link-n-length type. They are also multi-media. Attack hobby has made the straight runs of track made from injection molded styrene, and the curved runs are made from resin. Both types (or materials) of track are well detailed. No decals were included in the kit, and it doesn't appear that the "Starr" variant of the 38(t) had markings beyond camouflage. I intend to build this kit out-of-box while using as many of the resin parts as possible. My paint scheme will closely resemble the box art and kit directions. I'd like to thank Attack Hobby Kits and John Noack for the privilege of reviewing this kit.

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