Airfix King Tiger Porsche

I had to get it despite having too many King Tigers already, (four in total, three of them Henshel [2 x Esci and 1 x Fujimi]turrets and one a Porsche [1 x Fujimi]). Seeing as Airfix had gone to all the trouble of making a new one it would be rude not to make one ;)

The new tooling is a dream and 95% of it is a pleasure to make, however they have strayed into the common trap of being too fussy with respect to the German complicated wheel arrangements at the expense of making the prongs that stick out to fit on the wheels too weak when you need strength in them the most (see below).

The issue comes to haunt the model maker when you try to "slip" the track over the running arrangement. I have to say first though that the new tracks are a massive improvement over the old Airfix tracks, better plastic and better connector design (as in, they have finally learnt from their old arch rivals Matchbox how to do it properly some forty years ago - I'm not complaining as they work now!) I found out that I bent one and had to take the precautionary measure of filling the space with Milliput as per below:

Despite this it looks a mean cat (see below), too mean for the venerable old Airfix Sherman and Churchill, plus the newcomer Cromwell which also is waiting in the wings for a chance to be made.

It is definitely a nice acquisition to have but part of me wishes they had gone back and "fixed" the Tiger I (it needs  a stowage bin and mud flaps) and made the mud skirts round the 234 armoured car the correct "late war" variant! I thought for a while they were going to do this as they released a Sherman Crab, a Sherman Calliope, the Matilda Hedgehog, a Crocodile Churchill and a Churchill Bridgelayer. These were effectively an existing kit with a new sprue stuck into it, which I thought made perfectly good sense. So why not the stowage bin on the Tiger and four little mud-flaps?