Tristar 1/35
German Flak 38 Crew

Tristar, earlier, released a model of the 20mm Flak 38. This was their kit number 010. It did not come with the gun crew at that time. Now, Tristar has done a follow-up kit of the gun crew.

The kit comes in an end-opening type box. The box art shows a Flak 38, manned by the gun crew, set up in a grassy field next to what looks like a corn field. The back of the box serves as the assembly and painting instructions with colors called out in either the Tamiya, Gunze Sangyo or Humbrol hobby paint brands. A side panel shows the box arts for the Flak 38 kit and two other figure kits in the Tristar line.

Tristar has only been pumping out mostly military figure kits for a little over a year now and is fairly new to that market. They are based in China.

Their figures are of pretty good quality and detail. However, I think their price for them is a little high compared to what DML and others charge for their figure kits.

I was glad to see this gun crew produced, as I have a couple self-propelled anti-aircraft tanks that mount the Flak 38 and sorely need crews.

The kit contains two trees of medium gray plastic parts. You get 5 crew figures. The 2 part trees are both individually cello bagged and then put into another larger cello. The figures are broken down into separate arms, torsos, legs and heads.

The first tree holds two figures, a couple of 20mm ammo cases, a 20mm ammo clip and five steel helmets (21 parts).

The second tree holds the remaining three figures, a pair of binoculars and a pistol in it’s holster (21 parts).

Two figures are in standing poses, one is seated, one is kneeling and the remaining one is crouching. The crouching figure has his torso and legs molded as one piece and his right shoe is a separate part. The two standing figures also have their torsos and legs molded as one and one has his jack boots both as separate parts and the other guy has one of his boots separate. The remaining two figures have their torso and legs as separate parts and one of them has his jack boots separate.

Conclusions

These guys will definitely dress up any model of the Flak 38. I recommend them to all armor modelers.