Development of the 10.5cm sK18 field gun and 15cm sFH18 howitzer began in the 1920s by Krupp and Rheinmetall. Both guns were designed to use the same carriage system. In the early 1930s both were accepted by the German army.
The common carriage for the gun was designed to be drawn by either horse or vehicle. It was a two-part carriage consisting of the main carriage and a separate limber. More than 6,700 10cm howitzers were built. Just over 1,400 of the 10.5cm field guns were manufactured due to the fact it was replaced by the lighter 10.5cm leFH 18 light howitzer.
Italeri has just released a new 1/72 scale kit that allows you to build either the 15cm howitzer or the 10.5cm field gun. The kit features all-new molds of the gun with optional barrel parts, limber, and five figures. Molded in crisp gray plastic, the parts show fine detail. Flash is minimal, and mold seams are very fine and easily removed.
The five figures are posed in the standard gun crew positions: map guy, pointing guy, shell guy, etc. Some have separate arms and heads where required.
A small decal sheet includes four different battery letters in both black and white as well as several small stencils for the gun and rounds. The small instruction booklet has nice large diagrams and full color and marking diagrams for two howitzers and one field gun.
Both the box art and painting diagrams point out the wrong part to be painted with the red and white stripes. Step 5 of the instructions correctly shows that the range poles (B25 (2), B27) are to be painted red and white.
Assembly starts with the barrels. Even though I planned on building the 10.5cm gun, I built both barrels. The 10.5 cm gun has the front section slide molded for the muzzle with the rear section molded in halves. The 15cm howitzer is molded in two halves. The fit is very good and very little work was needed to remove the seams. On the 15cm barrel, the breech block (D04, listed as C04 in the instructions) did not completely cover the breach. I carefully sawed off the block from the plate with a thin blade saw so I could position it correctly. The 10.5cm gun's breach block was missing from my kit, so I scratchbuilt one with some thin plastic card and strip.
I didn't have any issues building the gun mount. Take care when adding the elevation cylinders — the upper halves snap into place, but their attachment points can be bent if forced. The recuperator/gun rail assembly is in two halves, but again the fit is excellent. When assembling the gun carriage, the four-piece trails have very noticeable seam lines at the front. Cleaning them up with some putty was complicated by the fact they need to be installed during their assembly. The wheels were assembled but not glued into place until painting was complete. The limber went together quickly and easily only requiring careful clean up and handling the small delicate parts. Again, I left off the wheels until painting was done.
The model was painted over all Tamiya German gray lightened with about 10% flat white. Once dry, the base was lightened even further and sprayed in various areas to add some modulation to the solid gray. I then gave the gray parts a light dry-brushing of light gray to help pop out the small details.
Decals responded well to the Micro System. Not shown in the instructions, decal 31 goes on the range board (A24) on the gun mount.
The tools were picked out with Vallejo black, sand, and steel, while the rage poles were painted with Tamiya flat white and red. Once dry the model was given coat of clear flat and washed with Tamiya dark brown panel line wash.
While I'm not great at painting figures (especially 1/72 scale ones), I gave it a shot on the pointing man, which I attached to a thin sheet styrene base. I used Vallejo field gray, brown leather, black, and several flesh tones lightened and darkened as needed.
With painting complete the wheels were added to the carriage. The connecting rod between the wheels (B03) was lost to tweezer launch, but easily replaced with a piece of stretched sprue. I found the fit of the wheels to the limber to be very sloppy, but with care they were glued in place. I also found the fit of the gun mount to the carriage to be very loose, so I glued it in place. In fact, I wound up gluing everything in a fixed position.
It only took about 11 hours the build the model — about seven hours for construction and four hours for painting. The finished model looks very nice and I was impressed with the petite and delicate detail. While I didn't find anything exceptionally difficult about building the kit, you will need some skill at handling and cleaning up the small parts. I might have to buy another kit and build the howitzer version.