text: The 2 cm Flakvierling 38, introduced in 1940, was basically a weapon of quad-mounted 2 cm Flak 38 AA guns, which was produced to compensate for the perceived slow rate of fire of the single Flak 38. Over 3,500 were built, and they saw service through the rest of the war, a period when the Allies increasingly dominated the skies above every battlefield. This set contains four identical sprues of the Flakvierling 38 and three crew figures. We found the gun itself a nightmare to build, since it is made in the same soft plastic as most figures, and the parts are often a very poor fit. With no instructions and only photos of the real thing to guide us, we were winging it right from the start, but even the major pieces were very difficult to put together and stay put. It does have a good many parts, but this and the imprecise fit means the kit quickly becomes difficult to manage, and is far below the quality of a good hard-plastic kit. By the time we got to the stage you see above we gave up. There were a few smaller parts not yet identified or added (probably sights etc), but each time we touched the model it started to fall apart, so we quit while we were ahead. As a result the above is not the complete model, so check out the sprue image for all the parts. It was an unhappy model-building experience, and with a unsatisfying result.
  The figures of course gave us no such grief. As can be seen, these are far from masterpieces themselves, being pretty basic and with detail that comes and goes. They wear standard German tunic, trousers and boots, plus the usual helmet, but as you might expect they have no kit. With their hands by their sides or on their knees, they are clearly not interacting with the gun, so don't make a great crew. Also of course, some of the most important members of the crew were the ones that fed it with ammunition, and there are none here performing that task. It is also worth noting that despite the drawing on the box, they do not wear winter clothing.
  Some LW sets are copies of or converted from the products of others, but we do not know if this set is original or not. However with plenty of flash, very inactive poses and a basic level of sculpting, there is not much to recommend these figures. The gun itself will require some mammoth levels of patience, or perhaps much more skilled fingers than ours!