Kit Review: Takom’s Panzer III Ausf.N mit Schürzen in 1:35th scale

By Tony Faust

Recently, I purchased the Takom Tiger I Zimmerit Big Box, which includes 3 Tiger One kits for just $99 dollars. At prices like that, who can’t afford to build Tigers? However, before starting to build one of the new Tigers, I thought it might be a good idea to see how Takom kits go together, so I pulled the Takom 1/35 Panzer III Ausf.N Mit Schurzen off the shelf and got to work.

This was my first experience building a Takom kit and it was fantastic. Overall, the engineering of this model is excellent. If Tamiya engineering is the gold standard, this model has achieved it in all areas. The parts aligned and fit together nicely. The only place on the model that needed putty was at the rear of the vehicle where the upper hull joins to the lower. It was a small seam and easy to fill with a little Tamiya White Putty. Anytime you have a model that includes Schurzen (armor side plates), it can be a little tricky to align the brackets it hangs on. In the case of this kit, everything aligned perfectly and it was a real relief to be able to get through that part of the build without any drama. The tracks are Link-and-Length, which went together without any significant issues. Overall, the molding of the parts was crisp and the detail was impressive. Injection points and seam lines were faint and easy to sand away. The kit comes with a limited photo etch fret for the Schurzen plate and parts to the exhaust vents. These were easy to work with and increased the realism of the kit.

The only criticism I have for this kit is the size of the instruction sheet, which is only 8” by 5.5”. At times, I had to use a magnifying glass to make sure I was putting things together correctly. Other than that, it was a joy to put this kit together.

Now that I have a little experience working with a Takom model, I am looking forward to breaking open the big box and getting to work on the three Tigers. Takom’s Panzer III Ausf.N kit is priced at roughly $35 dollars, which, given the quality of the kit, is a very reasonable price. Overall, I highly recommend this version of the Panzer III for modelers with two of more years experience in the hobby.