Just thought I'd share my thoughts on tis little gem from Tamiya.
Yesterday I went to a wargaming/modeling show near Manchester (Sunday). While there I picked up lots of little goodies I've been meaning to for ages such as Greif lenses, some heads, fine chain, Mig pigments etc, and I also got the chance to rummage through a box of Aber PE sets. Now I've used loads of Eduard, and even the occassional Verlinden, but never had the chance to use Aber before. I managed to find the aber set for the Tamiya Schwimmwagen, and from another stall to find the schwimmwagen itself. Needless to say as soon as I arrived home it was out of the box and the planning began.
I remembered I had built the Schwimmwagen years ago and it was in the loft somehwere, so I had a rummage and brought it together with the new one to compare, now that I had the Aber set. I had no idea that Tamiya had produced models as bad as that old schwimmwagen! With being out of modeling for some years I must have missed the part where Tamiya re-tooled this thing! The new one is amazing! How long ago did they do that? Does this also mean they have re-tooled the kubelwagen as well? What about some of the other older Tamiya kits?
Anyhow, coming to the point at last....lol....the aber set is quite simply stunning. Are there many people out there who have managed to use one of these sets completely? I spent last night (hours!) just doing the front axle arrangement, the complexity is amazing. No more Eduard from now on....if there is an Aber set available I'll get that!


Vinnie

teacher,
The kubelwagon is a retool as well i got the italeri effort of a swimi its poor
compared to the new tool tamyia one oh and check out verlinden they
do a great ss crew firing from it oks fantastic,
as for retools
the moblewagon is a retool you can still buy the old one as well and most
of the pz4's are retools apart from the 1st pz4 I even think the dragon wagon is
a retool? the krupp protze with the arty piece is also a retool

dare say there's more some one else will tell you

Hi teacher. From memory tamiya have two new versions of their Kubelwagen out ... both are type 82, but one has a different tyre design for the africa corps. Lovely little kits ..... i have both of these and Italeri´s kubel ...... some difference


Not sure that these are 100% retooled. The basis of the old kits are still there, with new replacement sprues for some parts. Dont have any of these kits, so i wont give certain answers, but I have read reviews and i think this is more likely

Some of the retooled Tamiya kits are:
Schwimmwagen
Kubelwagen
Tiger
King Tiger
PzKpfw IV
PzKpfw III
StuG III
Willys Jeep
SdKfz 251 half-track

I've probably missed a few. I have several of these reissues like the Jeep, Schwimmwagen, Kubelwagen, PzKpfw III, StuG III, Tiger and an SdKfz half-track. I made the old variants back in my youth and recently finished the old Schwimmwagen about a year ago. Night and day between the old and new variants. New variants have kit numbers of 35190 and higher. Older ones have lower kit numbers.

Aber PE is much better than Eduard PE; however, Aber has mainly WW2 German with an occasional Soviet or US WW2 PE set thrown in. Eduard carries sets for those of us who like to build the winning side or more modern kits.

Hi there.

First, a minor correction to Sabot's information:
The new-tooled Tiger 1 Late (Steel Wheels) was kit 35146. All repeat kits (Jagdpanther, King Tiger etc) after that point are new-tooled.

Here are some details on the sort of changed kits:
The Churchill (35210) is the same old Croc kit minus the trailer for the Croc, and with a nice set of figures and a farm cart.

The Mobelwagen is all new, and the correct service vehicle with the 37mm gun.
The quad 20mm Wirbelwind is the new PzIV hull, same old gun, turret and figures.
The 251 is a D not a C as in the old kit. Not really a new tooling, a different variant (like the Panther, G not the old A). The 251 tracks and running gear are not the best, and AFV Club have a nice replacement set.
The 'new' M4 Shermans all use the 35122 M4A3 running gear and hull. There are various upgrades to the 35250 and 35251 releases.
The same old universal carrier kit has been released under 3 different numbers. The second release has some new figures, pretty nice. The latest release has even more figs. Same old kit though.

I don't know about anything beyond the WW2 kits.

Cheers
Andy

>Yesterday I went to a wargaming/modeling show near Manchester (Sunday).

Whereabouts was this fair? Where did you see it advertised? Know of any more planned oop north?

Cheers