Revell Spähwagen Fennek 1:72

03136
Price around £11.50 GBP (Sep2014)
Review by Geoff Coughlin

Thanks to Revell for supplying our review sample. Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For details visit www.revell.de/en, @RevellGermany or facebook.com/Revell

A bit of background

The Fennek, named after the fennec (a species of small desert fox), or LGS Fennek, with LGS being short for Leichter Gepanzerter Spähwagen in German (Light Armoured Reconnaissance Vehicle), is a four wheeled armed reconnaissance vehicle produced by the German company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, Dutch Defence Vehicle Systems and Turkish FNSS Defence Systems. It was developed for both the German Army and Royal Netherlands Army to replace their current vehicles.

Initial assessment

Some initial features of the kit are:

• Structural details on surface
• Optional German or Dutch version can be built
• Optional armament 7.62 mm/0.5 inch MG or 40mm grenade launcher
• Hatches can be built open

Authentic decal set for following versions:

• Übergabefahrzeug an die Bundeswehr, December 2003
• Bundeswehr, ISAF
• Übergabefahrzeug an die Niederländische Armee, December 2003

There are several other reviews of 1:72 Revell armour subjects in Here Now like the Panzer IV, Challenger and M 2 A2 Bradley? These are all really impressive little kits in this scale and this Cromwell Mk.IV cruiser tank is no different.

Moulding quality is to a high standard with fine levels of detail across the board. The attached images should speak for themselves and you can decide what you think, especially as armour is probably your area. So I offer a basic insight into this Revell kit that’s widely available and this will be good news to all of you that are interested in armour modelling in this scale.

The package

Two sprues moulded in dark green plastic form the basis of the model, a set of instructions, and small decal sheet and clear acetate strip for the windows make up the package. This model is a re-release of the one that appeared in 2004 with new decals.

Sprue trees

You can see that the chassis very clean and crisp, as is just about everything else. The detail is cleanly and accurately moulded onto the surface and will look excellent when spray painted and given a subtle wash and maybe filters (see your Techniques Bank for how to apply these weathering techniques) in keeping with the small scale. The moulded detail throughout is good and although I can’t give an opinion on accuracy, what you get certainly looks consistent with some of the images I have seen.

The Fennek is a comparatively simple AFV in terms of external design and fit and this is reflected in what’s provided by Revell here. Check out the photos to see more of this detail above.

Other highlights include

The four wheels are well-moulded with nice hub detail although they are each in two halves that will need joining.

There’s no flash or excess plastic on any of the parts, so this will help build time greatly.

Decals

There’s a small sheet with the respective number plates and unit badges for the options contained in the kit and listed above. The quality looks good overall.

Instructions

These follow the usual Revell format with Revel colour references, parts and sprue layout diagrams followed by a 38-Stage build and finishing sequence. The Fennek is a simply designed AFV to look at and will not present any problems to the builder. The sequence looks to be logical to me.

To sum up

This is good little kit and I suspect that you’ll be pleased to see this one again if 1:72 armour modelling is your area of interest given all the impressive kits being released in this scale – especially by Revell. Levels of detail are ok this time for the scale, and fit looks to be clean and pretty trouble-free. At the small price of the kit, you can’t go wrong really now can you?

Quick summary SMN Star Rating out of 5