Flakpanzer IV 'Ostwind' and'Wirblewind'

Manufacturer: Hasegawa

37mm Flakpanzer IV 'Ostwind' Kit # 31147

20mm Flakpanzer IV 'Wirblewind' Kit # 31148

Building on the success oftheir earlier Panzer IV releases, Hasegawa is continuing torelease additional vehicles based on the ubiquitous Panzer IVchassis. In fact, their next releases will be two versions of theJagdpanzer IV. The basis for the Panzer IV kits was the originalMunitionspanzer IV, which was included in their Karl Morser kit.It was a very old kit, and the parts do not really stack up allthat well compared to new kits. In the Panzer IV series, Hasegawaincluded the entire lower hull, chassis and track components fromthe Munitionspanzer, while making the rest of the kit parts fromnew molds. Refer to my Panzer IV Comparison article for more information aboutthe Pz. IV kits.

The two main complaintsabout the earlier Panzer IV's were the poor wheels and tracks.For these new releases, Hasegawa has fixed the wheel problem byincluding sprues of entirely new wheels (and other details);unfortunately, the same poor tracks are still included with thesenew kits. We can only hope that the upcoming Jagdpanzers willfinally have hard plastic, link-and-length tracks included, but Iwouldn't count on it.

The Ostwind and Wirblewindkits are primarily composed of the same hull components from thePanzer IV series (including the lower hull from theMunitionspanzer), but with the addition of the new wheel sprues,and two small unique sprues for their appropriate turret parts.

Here is the oldMunitionspanzer sprue showing the lower hull parts:

Here are the upper hullsprues carried over from the Panzer IV kits:

Here are the new wheelsprues:

Here is the new sprue ofparts for the Ostwind turret:

Here is the new sprue ofparts for the Wirblewind turret:

As a comparison with the ESCIWirblewind kit, this new kit compares very favorably. The overall hull isnicer on the Hasegawa kit, as are the wheels. But of course theESCI hard plastic tracks are much better. The turrets rate aboutthe same in quality, although the Hasegawa turret sides aremolded a bit thinner. The guns on both kits are mediocre. Thebarrels for the 20mm cannons are too thick (as always). ThisHasegawa kit has the ammunition clips molded onto the gunbreaches, whereas they are separate parts, and better detailed,in the ESCI kit. ARMO produces a 20mm Flakveirling in resin (withturned aluminum barrels), which could be used to directly replacethe guns in these Wirblewind kits.

The Ostwind and Wirblewindkits also contain Sprue E from the Panzer IV kits:

And finally, the Ostwindkit also contains Sprue D from the Panzer IV kits:

As mentioned above, thetracks are the same, single piece vinyl, horrible tracks included in their Pz. IV kits. I highly recommend thatbuilders replace the tracks with some from a Revell Pz IV kit (ifyou can spare them), or use the photoethed brass tracks fromExtraTech or PART.

The decals are typical ofHasegawa, i.e., well printed, good color and registration, butthe carrier film is too thick. As you can see, the markings arelimited to a poor selection of numbers and a couple ofbalkenkreuzes. Perhaps most Flakpanzers didn't carry manymarkings. If it wasn't for the overly-thick carrier film, thesewould be pretty nice decals.