Field Camp Set, ca. 1940–1965
Hasegawa 1:72 Scale Accessories Review
Military modellers, diorama builders, and wargamers need an enormous amount of scenic accessories to create the look and feel of a particular event or period in history. Military vehicles involved in a protracted campaign are typically laden with a variety of stores and personal gear, a look which is rarely achieved with the standard parts included in a model kit. Instead, the modeller will have to scrounge items of combat stowage from other sources or build them from scratch.
Contents
- 1 Wooden Bridge
- 4 Brick Wall Sections
- 2 Utility Poles
- 2 Wooden Fences
- 3 Tank Obstacles
- 2 Road Signs
- 8 Sandbags
- 1 Tent
- 4 Ammunition Boxes
- 8 Fuel Cannisters
- 5 Fuel Drums
Evaluation
Excellent choice of subject, this kit is the first of its kind, and it is made in the same hard plastic used for model vehicle kits. The items can be glued with liquid plastic cement.
Minimal assembly, most pieces are ready to use. Good casting quality, minimal flash.
The metal tank obstacles are very interesting, and they will look nice in a Normandy beach setting. Assembly can be a little tricky, the instructions should be studied carefully to avoid mistakes.
The wooden bridge would be suitable for crossing a narrow ditch or a short stretch of swampy ground. The bridge is 134 mm long and 66 mm wide, and it looks just sturdy enough to support a medium truck or a light armoured vehicle. The bridge rests on six vertical supports sunk into the ground, it has no ramp at either end.The underside of the bridge is scored along its entire lenght, and it can be snapped in half to create two sections of wooden fence. Fences of this type may be found in Eastern Europe, and possibly in some Asian countries.
The tent included in this set has a ground area of 48 × 40 mm, and it looks like it might be used as a medical tent. It is much too large for a frontline dwelling, and it has a rectangular door frame instead of the more common tent flap.
The wooden ammunition boxes may be used as combat stowage on open-topped combat vehicles. If supply trucks are to be loaded with ammunition boxes, a simple trick is to cover a core of balsa wood with a single layer of ammunition boxes. We used the four boxes in this set to equip the Kettenschlepper Bren tractor of a 7.5 cm PaK 40 anti-tank gun. The rear stowage box has been removed to make room for the ammo boxes.
The fuel cannisters are very useful vehicle accessories, even if they are not of the sought-after Wehrmacht type. The cans have a large recessed X on either side which is more reminiscent of the American and Italian copies of the Jerrycan.
Compatible with most vehicle and figure sets.
The fuel drums will require some filling and sanding to hide the seems along the two drum halves. Fuel drums may be used as cargo, and they look right on airfields and at vehicle fueling points. A beautiful model of a dented and rusted fuel drum can be found in the Revell 8th Army infantry set.
The sandbags are too much alike to be of use in a diorama. A single bag, placed on a vehicle or in a window-sill, may look right, but larger sandbag emplacements should be made from DAS Pronto modelling putty.
The triangular brick wall sections are not very useful, there are no doors or windows to build a house with. If these walls were designed to represent ruins, one would expect to see irregular pieces of broken wall instead of triangles. These walls are brand new, with no bullet or sharpnel holes anywhere. Two wall sections may be combined to form a square piece of brick wall which has no apparent uses on the battlefield either.
One of the sign posts is a civilian type with only two directions shown. The other one makes a suitable minefield warning sign. Paper cut-out signs are included in the instructions, but they are marred by bad spelling and grammatical mistakes. "CAUTION. HAVE YOU THE CORRECT AUTHORITY FO FROCEED" just doesn’t sound very military, unless we are to assume that Jerry wrote the sign to confuse enemy drivers. "STOP!! A LAND MINE" is equally inappropriate, why mark a single mine instead of just clearing or detonating it.
Fences and power lines may be of some use in a diorama. The kit contains two each of these items, not enough to fence in a field or line a road.
Historical Employment
- Europen Theater of Operations (ETO) 1940–1945
- Pacific Theater of Operations (PTO) 1942–1945
- South-east Asia 1945–1954
Hasegawa’s Field Camp Set is a good source of a number of important items of modern equipment. The mixture of scenery and vehicle stowage is not very practical for modellers or diorama builders, it would have been better to focus on one or the other type of accessory items. Fuel cannisters, personal equipment, ammunition boxes and separate rounds of ammunition are notoriously in short supply, and an accessory kit featuring these items would be a welcome addition to the growing range of 1:72 scale model kits.