Plastic Soldier Review - Hasegawa 88mm Gun Flak 18

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Hasegawa

Set 31110

88mm Gun Flak 18

All figures are supplied unpainted (Numbers of each pose in brackets)

Stats

Date Released	1991
Contents	1 gun and 6 figures
Poses	6 poses
Material	Plastic (Very Hard)
Colours	Grey

Average Height

26 mm (= 1.87 m)

Review

Although most Hasegawa kits did not come with any figures, this is one of the few that did, so it gets a page on our site. German artillery has been a popular subject for sets in the past, but many fail to provide an adequate crew. Even the Airfix version of this gun has no one to serve it, so while there are now sets of artillery crew available, when this kit was made it was a rarity.

Hasegawa were not the best quality kits, and their figures were no better. These reflect that tradition, since they are fairly unappealing to look at and with a somewhat awkward anatomy and posture. The detail is fair but some items such as the helmets are not well done. Many of the figures have separate arms, which attach well enough thanks to the hard plastic, but the hands tend to be vague and awkward. The very thin (but adequate) bases are also separate, as is the range-finder, though this is not an easy fit in the hands as you can see above. On our example there was a certain amount of flash, though nothing too bad.

The poses are of the two men that actually controlled the gun, two more carrying ammunition, one with a range-finder and an officer. As choices of poses these are all fine, though as we have said the sculpting was fairly awkward. The seated men are significantly smaller than the standing ones, to fit the gun model of course, though as the standing men are much too tall it is the seated figures that are of the correct size. The second seated man isn’t doing anything much, but otherwise the poses are adequate.

The men all wear helmet, standard field tunic, trousers and marching boots. A couple have rifle ammunition pouches on the belt, and all have the braces over the shoulder. They also all wear the gasmask case, but there is no other kit apart from the third figure from the left, who has been given some random shapes round the back that are unidentifiable and have no bearing on reality. Artillery generally put aside most kit so they could better work the gun, so there is nothing particularly wrong with the clothing and kit here.

With other, much better sets of German artillery figures available today this little collection does not offer much for the modern modeller. At the time of release however it had no competition, and it at least enlivened a model that certainly needed it, so while we loudly applaud Hasegawa for taking the trouble to produce this crew we would have to say that the general quality of sculpting means there is not much to recommend this to anyone today.

Ratings

Historical Accuracy	10
Pose Quality	7
Pose Number	7
Sculpting	5
Mould	7