Cromwells 1/76 French 155mm C mle 1917 Howitzer
The 155mm Howitzer by Schneider, was the principal heavy howitzer piece of the French Army during the Great War.
Cromwell makes a model kit of the 155mm mle17. (At least I guess it is the mle17, as the detail of the Breech are somewhat vague...) It is made in that companys usual creme-coloured, not too stiff resin. It is a good kit. The casting is up to Cromwells usual standards, with perhaps a lot of more moulding flash than we are used to. The cleaning up isn't that bad, but there are excess resin to be rid of on several tricky places, not least on the Shield. This is a bit tedious. (Note that the kit also contains a limber, hence the four wheels. Note that the big wheels are for the Limber. The wheels of the gun should fit within the bulge of the Shield. But mid you: not all the excess flash
on the wheels ARE excess flash: on each wheel there also should be a mechanical brake plate.) One really good thing is the Dial Sight, which is often missing or pretty crude, but this is actually a really good representation of the real
thing.
The details are good and sharp, but there are a lot of them missing, not least on the area around the breech. For example, there are no elevating wheels to be found, a prominent feature in the original, the attachment points for the arc dente - under the cradle - are gone as is the mechanism for securing the cradle to the trail when moving the piece. And on the leftside lower front of the shield there should be a cranking
wheel.
In all: a kit that is pretty good, only let down by it's comparative lack of detail. Still, it's hard to find much better kits of WW1 Artillery out there today - beside SHQ and Al.By that is!
(The Skytrex version of this gun is also good.) Get it if you can!
If you want to build this kit, you will be aided
by this page.
