ICM has added another variation to its German halftracks, which began in 2018. This version, the ICM 1/35 scale SdKfz 251/1 Ausf B plastic model kit, is a troop carrier. The only difference between the Ausf A and B variants was that the rear vision slits in the troop compartment were eliminated for the latter. This required ICM to mold a new top half for this kit, but it includes the original Ausf A version, too.
The kit’s 24-page instructions cover 103 steps. The bottom half of the kit builds from four flat pieces that have positive locators that ensure a square and level base for the rest of the kit. Construction continues with adding the angular sides of the body, and once again, ICM provides good positive locators.
ICM provides a nicely detailed engine. Unfortunately, it got covered up as soon as the engine doors were added. If I were to build this kit again, I would scratchbuild the doors so they are scale thin and leave the doors open — the engine is worth seeing.
The firewall between the engine and crew compartment houses plenty of detail. Construction continues from front to back, adding bench seats and other equipment along the walls of the bottom half of the crew compartment. Given that most of this will be difficult to paint with the top on, I painted the interior and details as I built them.
The exterior and interior details of the top half of the vehicle were added, starting with the vision slits and engine compartment doors. The kit provided five rifles and two light machine guns to attach to the top half, so once again, I painted these as I added them.
The most challenging part of the build came next: mating the top half with the bottom. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get them to seat neatly together. Eventually, I superglued and clamped the parts to keep them from springing apart. Carefully add the rear doors so they swing freely.
Finally, I added the running gear and road wheels for the tracked portion of the vehicle. Both the tires and the tracks are molded in soft plastic. The tracks are beautifully molded without seams, and I glued them to the top of the road wheels to simulate the distinctive sag you see with these halftracks. The front tires have a slight seam down the middle, but it was easily sanded off. However, there are no sidewall details on the tires.
The instructions provide four unique finishing options: three are from the Eastern Front 1941, including a plain gray version, a gray variant with brown camouflage, and a gray version with whitewash camouflage. Finally, there’s a version from North Africa that is gray with middle stone mud camo from 1942. I used the basic gray variant. As I mentioned before, I had to paint this as I built it due to the open top and the difficulty reaching most of the details after the top is attached.
I really enjoyed the ICM 1/35 scale SdKfz 251/1 Ausf B plastic model kit, right up to the point where I had to join the top and bottom halves. I’m sure I needed to remove some of the vertical panels between the two parts, but I couldn’t find the offending part(s) and eventually just muscled it together with superglue. It comes with a wealth of detail and looks good when finished. However, a lot of that detail includes small, delicate parts, which leads me to suggest this kit should only be tackled if you’ve got a number of kits under your belt.