IPMS/USA Reviews

Box Art

Wow, just looking at this piece has given me a re-found respect for you Braille-scale builders!  I don’t see how you can do it. I have enough troubles bending and gluing photo-etched parts. I will learn to start soldering them soon. Can’t even imagine trying to do it 1/72 scale. That is an issue anyone that buys this kit will need to overcome.

Mini World appears to be a relatively new company or at least a new off shoot from a company in the Ukraine. There were many companies that carried their line (all overseas) but only Hannants had this particular item listed on their website. Mini World does not have a website of its own. Their items are pretty impressive. They currently have 18 different machine guns on the market. Most are for WWI aircraft but I did also notice two different DShK kits available as well.

Being a TreadHead and almost always working in 1/35 scale, I have never had to pull out my magnifying glass to examine a product. This is exactly what I did on this kit. Man is it sweet! You get a brass LMG 14 that is just absolutely gorgeous. You also get a VERY small fret of photo-etch that contains the drum and ammunition (ingeniously designed as a once piece affair), rear sight, and two different front sights (rectangular or round), and a small piece of copper wire.

The small instruction sheet is double sided and is easy enough to comprehend. The instructions are written in both Ukrainian (form of the Cyrillic Alphabet) and English. The instructions show the copper wire being attached to the right side of the front sight and to the drum magazine. This is not called out but the picture is plain enough to see. The instructions state that this gun can be used on the following planes: Rumpler C.I – C.VII, LVG C.1 – C.VI, Albatros C.I – C.XV, Gotha G.1 – G.V, and the Staaken R. The etched drum/belt includes a strip that exits the left side of the mechanism to accurately portray the cloth links that held the bullets in alignment.

I would like to thank Mini World for making a great little hop up kit, Hobby Terra for providing the review sample and IPMS/USA for a place to post this review. Have fun; build a WWI Aeroplane.