I bought this kit from Hobby Easy in Hong Kong for an amazing $8.50 which was just too good to pass up. Also my buddy Jim Bambra who makes excellent wargaming rules at Combat HQ wanted some photos of an Elefant (not the big eared type), so i happily obliged with my build of this interesting tank.

The more i build Trumpeter kits the more i like them. Enough detail for a bit of a challenge, but all the bits go together nicely without too much screwing around. I hate messing around with ill fitting parts. It’s no fun! This kit is great. A few little things should be mentioned. The instructions are not correct for the running gear assembly, so you really need to pay attention to the pictures and not the instructions to make sure you get the right wheels and the right suspension in the right places. Also there were two little spikey bits that go behind the sprocket wheels that i could not get into the right place and so i left them out. It didn’t matter as you cannot see them anyway in the final model. I did get some photo etched grills and stuff but they did not appear in the instructions and seem to have some from another version or something.

There are two options for the tracks. You can use the single piece rubber/vinyl or you can build the link and length type. I could not see how you could attach the link and length easily on the wheels unless you did them much earlier in the build than the instructions suggested. So i went for the single length tracks and they worked out fine.

All the hatches are moulded shut which is a shame, but i guess you could open them up with some knife work. It would be good to put a commander in there somewhere. I did a a two colour paint job, just yellow and green patches. Plus lots of dirt and mud and dust as usual. Its a cool kit and a cool looking tank. Much fun.