ESCI – 8369 – 8027 – Sd. Kfz. 250/3

Description:

Sd. Kfz. 250/3

Unassembled plastic model kit in 1/72 scale of a German WWII armoured half-track Sd.Kfz.250 command variant /3, “alte“, early production, with the distinguishable angled armoured plates, costly to manufacture that after 1943 was simplified (“neu“) as happened to the Sd.Kfz.251 to who resembles, despite be manufactured and designed by a different maker. The command variant had different subversions depending in the radio mounted. This variant also had a frontal machine gun (MG 34) shielded.

This Sd.Kfz.250 kit was tooled in 1975 and was the first of three Sd.Kfz.250s variants released by ESCI. The kit depicts the command variant /3, clearly distinguishable by the aerial frame antenna. The kit shares the common ugly tracks that ESCI tooled, which to us if the worse feature of the kit, together with a mistake in the front wheels which are not correct. Same errors appear in other variants released.

The basic interior detail and too high floor are usually spotted also as the main flaws of the kit.

Originally the kit included a decal sheet with four markings, including the most famous Sd. Kfz. 250/3 of the war, the one used by Rommel in the North African campaign, GREIF. To complete this kit, ESCI tooled three hard plastic figures, one of them, Rommel himself, and though this figures are not bad, they lack of the crispy detail of the soft plastic ones.

This kit was later released under Revell-ESCI, Hasegawa or Aurora-ESCI and finally under ESCI-Ertl, changing code number to 8369 and also has been re-released under Italeri brand as Italeri – 7034 – Sd. Kfz. 250/3. At the end of the ESCI-Ertl, around 1990, Ertl added link and length tracks type, but end result was not so good as in other ESCI kits where Ertl did the same, and Italeri did not released the link-and-length tracks in the 2000s reissue, just the single piece rubber ones. Only ESCI-Ertl released both the single piece and link-and-length tracks, but boxes are externally equal.

As per 2022, though other brands like ACE or MK72 (now under Special Hobby) tooled their Sd.Kfz.250 kits, the command variant /3 hasn’t been done again never, so the ESCI moulds remain as the only available in one of their many re-releases.