Tuesday 14 February 2012

Pegasus 1/72 KV-1 & 2 quick build set review - Part 1

Fans of German WW2 AFV modeling enjoy a huge variety of vehicles to choose from, and even the Western Allied inventory is quite diverse. But modelers who want to immerse themselves in Red Army fighting vehicles might be forgiven for thinking that the only real choice you have is which variant of T-34 to build.

Luckily Pegasus Hobbies have come to the rescue of the quick build modeler with a selection of Soviet armored vehicles that represent both the early war years and the latter. In this case the KV series of heavy tanks were a nasty surprise for the Nazis during Operation Barbarossa that eventually provoked a German response in the form of the Tiger and the Panther tanks...

Part 1 - In box overview
Pegasus’s KV1/2 quick build set contains enough parts to make either the early heavy tank variant of the Klimenti Voroshilov (Voroshilov being Stalin’s Peoples’ Defence Commissar during the development of this tank in the late 1930s) or the later heavy assault version with it’s massive 152mm howitzer!

What’s in the box?
Above: The complete set of sprues and parts to make ONE of the tanks in the box - you get
two sets of sprues like this.

Like Armourfast and Italeri, Pegasus Hobbies has created a model set specifically targeted at the 1/72nd scale war gamer. You get two models of the tank in a no frills format and simplified running gear – easy enough for the young modeler and uncomplicated enough for the experienced war gamer to have constructed within half an hour!

Above: Quite nicely done road wheels on their torsion bar suspensions.

Above: The one-piece track section of the running gear. The track tread is
greatly simplified, but passable from a distance.

That said, Pegasus do offer quite a bang for your bucks and give you a good deal more than their quick build competitors, both in detail and build options. While their surface detailing may be on the fuzzy side and they do tend to skip some of the finer and fiddlier ornamentation Pegasus do pack in some nice touches that in themselves allow the modeler the option to further detail the kit if they wish.

Above: The detailing sprue, which includes the distinctive appliqué armour sleeves.

The inclusion of tow hooks in the PegasusT-34/85 set, for example, may seem a small and perhaps not altogether necessary item for the war gamer, but having included them it does give the modeler the chance to wack on a tow cable if they wish.

Furthermore, Pegasus – particularly in this mixed variant set – give you the chance to build not just two of the most distinctive, and quite different looking, KV tank types but also an additional sub-variant of the KV-1 model.

Above: The KV-1 turret and associated parts (note: that the gun mantlet had dropped off the sprue).

Above: The enormous KV-2 assault gun turret!

As well as the main choice of whether to build either a KV-1 heavy or KV-2 assault tank you also get the chance to add-on some applique sleeves to turn the KV-1 Model 1940 into the KV-1 ‘Ekranami’ Model 1941 with it’s very distinctive turret armour.

Two models with the possibility of building in THREE different variants for £8.99? Not bad!

Above: The lower hull section. It's quite nicely detailed with all the appropriate suspension sockets.

Painting options
Pegasus don’t give you much of a clue – other than the box artwork – as to how to paint your models and neither do they supply any decals (mainly as war gamers will probably like to apply generic tank numbering rather than tying down a vehicle to a specific unit). But there are plenty of websites our there that do show examples of paint schemes for you to chose from and companies like Aleran do a KV decals sheet.

The good news is that the KV tank series had a very colourful history (sometimes literally). Aside from the variety of Soviet deployments the tank was also captured and put into use by both the Germans and the Finns. The Finish camo patterns were particularly pretty and makes for a very interesting alternative for a tabletop campaign scenario.

Link: More about the KV tank series at Wikipedia

NEXT: The construction stage

2 comments:

  1. Looks fantastic. I think I'll ditch my old KV-1 kits (half of them have some broken off wheels) and replace with these. I especially love the tracks, which droop. And being plastic I can weather then up with my powders, which doesn't work so well on the rubber tracks.

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  2. Nice kits these - and the 'spare' turrets are handy if someone gives you a pair of spare KV hulls...

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