This is my first kit from Mister Panzer, and I am fairly impressed. This Italian firm got its start from re-releasing the former Da.Ga. series of kits, and has since begun releasing a series of modern Italian armored fighting vehicles. The Centauro tank destroyer is their newest kit.

My references on this vehicle are sparse, but based on the dimensions given in Jane's Tanks and Combat Vehicles Recognition Guide, this kit scales out to less than a millimeter too wide, and almost perfect length, which is quite impressive. The details seem to be accurate based on the few photographs I have seen. My only complaint is that the turret mounted 7.62mm machinegun is not included, and it also would have been nice to include the optional armor and additional machineguns that were mounted on this vehicle for operations in the Balkans.

Both the turret hatches are molded open, and most of the tools and many smaller details are molded as separate parts. There are no bubbles in the resin, however, there is a problem with mold shift on two of the parts. The left front cheek of the turret is marred with a line in the plastic, but luckily this is a flat armored plate, so filling it and sanding it smooth won't be a problem. However, the gun will be a lot harder to fix, as it too was subject to a nasty shift in the mold. You can see it in the parts scan above. Even though the gun shield will be easy enough to fix, the gun tube itself will be next to impossible to repair, without losing all of the molded-on detail. (Although you can't see it in the scan, the gun is also horribly warped downward, and looks like a limp... well, how about banana?) I really don't think this piece should have been boxed up, and I hope that Mister Panzer's quality control on their other kits is better than this one.

There are no decals included with the kit. The instructions are done well enough, with some line drawings depicting where most of the kit parts go, but the drawings are photocopies of photocopies of photocopies, and are therefore difficult to read. Again, better quality control could have been used here. One interesting note, the drawings show that the wheels are mounted on a slight angle towards the ground, so that the tires are not perpendicular to the ground, but rather toed inward at the bottom. However, the kit tires are not flattened at the proper angle, so you will have to take some sandpaper to them once they are mounted to get them to sit properly on the ground, instead of riding along one edge of the tread.

Aside from the problem with the barrel, this is a really great-looking model, and I look forward to getting their other modern Italian vehicles as well.