Dragon Models

1/35 German Rocket Launcher w/ Crew

Kit Number: 6509

Reviewed by  Andy Renshaw, IPMS# 35806

MSRP: $14.50 Website: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Rocket artillery was only in its beginning development during world war two, however several successful systems were developed by most of the major players. One of them was Germany with the Wurfkoerper series, which is commonly seen on the Sdkfz 251 and became known as "stuka zu fuss". The ground mount for these rockets was the Schweres Wurfgerat 41. This simple wooden or metal frame could mount four rockets in baskets. The basket loaded with the rocket was simply placed onto the frame, then once a series of them prepared, all were fired for devastating results. Though highly inaccurate, in mass they could saturate an area with a high volume of explosive or incendiary power. As part of their 39'-45' series, Dragon has recently released a figure kit with a full Wurfgerat 41 and four rockets with frames. There is also a set of five figures included in various positions preparing the rockets. The box is the larger style figure box with a bottom and top lid with some decent artwork.

Opening the box you are greeted with the standard sprue of figure parts, a sprue containing the wooden frame, and a sprue for the four Wurfkoerper. Speaking of these, you get two 28cm Wurfkoerper Spr. (HE) and two 32cm Wurfkoerper F1 (napalm). Also you get a very intense photo etched sheet that has parts within parts. More on that later. There is also a full color front and back instruction sheet. First, looking at the figures, these are directly from Dragon's #6090 Granatwerfer 42 Mortar w/ Crew kit. All come with full winter reversible parkas with camo on one side and white on the other. There are no weapons or personal gear included. As with most Dragon figures, they are wonderfully sculpted but suffer from large mold lines. I have found a small needle file with a elliptical cross-section works well as I can use either the broad arch or narrow edge to clean between folds. The wooden frame is a new tooled item which could have a little wood grain scribed in using a fine razor saw or other method. The rockets are provided in four parts: nose cap, two body halves split widthwise, and the rocket motor section. The upper nose part has the sprue attachment in a difficult place as it falls right on the external rib, so some careful cleaning is required here. Construction Starting with the figures, once cleaned up they are very simple to assemble with only six parts each. The fit is excellent and for this review no filler was used. You get five figures in various poses, and they do somewhat work with the rocket launcher even though their origins are as a mortar crew. As a mortar crew they are poised to drop in the first round down the mortar tube, so the one figure looking at his watch about to give the signal to "commence fire" makes sense, however the same figure in this set does not make any sense as the crew are still loading the launcher! So it is when Dragon attempts to recycle a previous figure set.

While the figures and launch rack are quite simple and easy to build, the rocket baskets are quite another situation. Each basket is composed of no less than 30 individual PE parts that must be folded and assembled. This is very time consuming and I was fortunate to have a Hold-n-Fold from the Small Shop available. Without it the necessary folding and shaping would have been very difficult. Also it takes a lot of patience and a bit of dexterity to position and glue some very small parts. It took me two solid evenings, or just about eight hours to assemble one basket! The end result is of course, very detailed and stunning…but it's not for the faint of heart. Also the baskets only truly fit the larger 32cm rockets, as the smaller ones move around a bit. There should be additional brackets that "shrink" the holding area to fit the 28cm Wurfkoerper, so these baskets would require a little bit of scratch built modification.

The box says "for modelers 14 years old and up". I would hate to expose a young and budding modeler to the torment that lies with the construction of the baskets. While the result is great, the process is not for the inexperienced. Also if you don't have access to a PE bending tool, I would buy one before you built this. So overall, I have a hard time recommending this set to anybody but those die hard Wurfgerat 41 fans. The figures are great, but if you really want the figures go with the original #6090 Granatwerfer 42 Mortar w/ Crew kit. Thanks to Dragon and IPMS for the review sample.