blog:models_mak_fledermaus

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Panzer Kampf Flugzeug 40 'Fledermaus'

  • Manufacturer: Nitto
  • Part number: Ma.K Series 11
  • Year of production: 1999
  • Scale: 1/20
  • Series: Maschinen Krieger / ZbV 3000 / SF3D
  • Kit type: Multimedia kit (plastic, rubber piping, brass, etc), fixed pose (no real moving parts)
  • In-universe role: Aircraft, Strahl Democratic Republic or can be built as Mercenary forces variant
  • Build date: ???

This is a 20+ year old kit that I bought from Yahoo Auctions Japan (via Buyee.com) in August 2021. Finding one is pretty rare, since they've been out of print for over 20 years and no-one (Wave, Hasegawa, etc) seems to have made a modern reprint of the design.

Manufacturers box art and an image of a built-and-painted Fledermaus, below:

The Fledermaus, or Bat, is one of the few dedicated flying vehicles in Maschinen Krieger; most being either armoured suits adapted for flight, or hover/anti-gravity vehicles.

In the lore, the Fledermaus was an early design that the Strahl Democratic Republic used to great effect when suppressing the colonists of Earth in the beginning of the war. I suppose as time went on, it was surpassed by dedicated anti-gravity vehicles like the Falke, and flight-capable armoured suits which didn't exist when it was introduced.

From an aesthetics perspective the Fledermaus definitely looks like a thrown-together design; it doesn't have much in the way of armour, the cockpit is cramped and the landing gear and propulsion system is all exposed. In a lot of ways that makes it seem like a much more plausible design!

I picked up the kit from my favourite haunt on Buyee.com in mid 2021, having been an out-of-print kit for over 20 years. Oddly, the Fledermaus is not a kit that Hasegawa has reproduced alongside their other modern remakes of the old Ma.K designs. You would think that with their aircraft model experience they would have produced a modern version - perhaps the old dies were lost?

  • blog/models_mak_fledermaus.1628088070.txt.gz
  • Last modified: 2021/08/04 14:41
  • by john