MACO

sWS (schwerer Wehrmachtschlepper)

Ever since I laid eyes on this kit, I knew this was a revelation for the Braille Scale Community: a small company producing injection plastic kits of high quality.
As far as I know this is the only injection plastic kit of this vehicle, and I am even wondering if we have a high quality one in any other medium.
This kit is designed based on CAD technology. After the design phase a 3D (layered) prototype kit is made and when everything is OK, the kit is then mass produced in plastic. Correct me if I am wrong, but I have been told that the actual production takes place in cooperation with Revell of Germany, which would not come as a surprise as the sprues are in the same tan plastic we have seen from Revell and they share the same crispness and quality.

The kit itself has 164 pieces. Some of them had already detached from the sprues when I opened the plastic bag inside the (side-opening) cardboard box, so be careful when you open it, to avoid feeding the carpet monster.

Quality of the pieces itself is impeccable, and while I haven't yet built one myself, I have seen one being built, and it looks like a breeze.

The manual is a CAD-design style, which is very clear. Some parts are accompanied by an exclamation mark, which I can only assume means you have to take care when glueing it.
The Schachtellaufwerk (interleaved suspension) is engineered just as in the latest Dragon Sd.Kfz.251 series with the inner row cast as one piece, the mid row connected by an arch that becomes invisible after assembly and individual outer wheels.
Quality of the link-and-length tracks is very high.

A minor nitpick is the splitting of the front wheels in two vertical halves, which may cause some loss of detail when sanding.
Also, a transparent window is needed, which (in my kit) wasn't included. The instructions give you a template however, and it cannot be that hard to cut this part from clear acetate.
You do get a decal for the dashboard.
All tools are separate and, at first sight, nicely done.

For the driver's and cargo compartment you get a tarp. Although the instructions do not mention it, you are free to leave it off. Note that the cargo tarp has its sides rolled up. Closing the compartment will require some scratchbuilding.

You get two marking options:
- Deutsche Wehrmacht, Autumn 1944. Dunkelgelb.
- US Army, Winter 1945. Olive drab.

For the former you get two licence plate decals, although 8 licence plate pairs are provided in total (WH and WL), in case you want some variation.
The choice of a US Army version is very original, and you get 6 white stars for that one. I am not sure if "winter 1945" would be January-February, or December (i.e. post-war).

Apart from the licence plates and the stars, you are left with a large white "G" and "F" and the name "Thor". I assume these are meant for particular vehicles, but I can't find them in my documentation.

The decals look good on the sheet.

References

My references on this vehicle are quite poor, but I can recommend the following:

http://www.pietvanhees.nl/sws/

In there you can find a picture of a captured sWS (not the one in the kit instructions) with a very interesting camo.

http://www.pietvanhees.nl/sws/period/soft_captured_camo_lf.jpg

Article Last Updated: 14 February 2009