Bolt Action Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel

The German counter part for the Allied 105mm HMC M7 Priest SPG in my late war projects would be the Sd.Kfz. 165 Hummel SPG, which we will cover in todays review. This article was prepared a while ago and now finished from the drafts into a proper review.

Like the M7 Priest SPG, the Hummel is a made to order kit by Warlord Games. They are usually not high numbers on stock and you will probably rarely find them on shelf at your FLGS, but as they are not Mail Order exclusive, you can order them either directly or have your store add them to their next delivery. The Hummel might not be shipped in a boxed set with printed artwork, but a neutral packaging (often a green ammo box) with a sticker on it. As this kit has been in my collection for quite some time (and in draft since 2018), mine came wrapped in simple bubble wrap with a sticker on it.

The "Hummel" (German for bumble-bee) was a self propelled gun of the German army, and its official name was Sd.Kfz. 165 - 15 cm schwere Panzerhaubitze 18/1 auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen III/IV (Sf). Its main gun was the 15-cm-schwere Feldhaubitze 18 (sFH 18) and more than 700 units were build during 1942 until early 1945. Towards the end of the war only half them were still in service and most of these were stationed on the Eastern Front, battling the shortage of fuel and ammunition. The Hummel was the successor of the Grille and Wespe, who used the Panzer II and Pz 38(t) chassis as a base. Still the tanks were build in overlapping production years.

Similar to the tank destroyer Nashorn, the Hummel was build upon the chassis of the Panzer IV with the power train of the Panzer III. Hitler ordered the name Hummel to be dropped, as he found the name unfit of a fighting vehicle, the same happened to the Nashorn, which was called Hornisse (Hornet) earlier.

Warlord Games offers this tank as a resin-metal hybrid kit, with the chassis and the tracks made from resin and the remaining pieces including the crew made from metal. The RRP is 31,50 GBP for this vehicle. It does not come with an assembly instruction, so you have to deduct the steps from the product images or research pictures of the actual tank.

As this is a resin kit, I washed the pieces prior to assembly in luke warm soap water and made sure that the tracks align with the body. If the tracks should be warped, you can align them easily by using hot water during the cleaning process and straighten the tracks.

Assembly went quite easy so far, just gluing the tracks to the side of the chassis.

The metal parts are casted quite well. You have to clean of some mould lines here and there, but otherwise it is a proper casting quality. We have the main gun, a crew of three (with four different heads), spare tracks, back doors and a few tools and detail parts made in pewter, along with the resin hull and tracks. In the first step, I added the spare tracks to the lower front plate and the head light on the left track panel. Afterwards we turn the vehicle around and can add the first cranks and levers to the interior.

Now for the main gun. This is the largest piece of the metal bits and you can either build it in transport / stabilized mode or open, so you can elevate the gun to your needs.

One of the levers is added directly to the gun and not the hull, as you can see from the picture. And I blu-tacked the hull MG to the kit, but as I will build this vehicle closed (with a tarp), I did not glue it into place just yet.

The back door isn't the best fit and you might need to apply some filler, to close any gaps that might occur. If you want, you could split the piece in the middle and build it opened up.

As mentioned further above, the Hummel comes with a crew of three and four different heads (going back to the Separate-Head-System introduced with the old Bolt Action metal range). In case you need some guidance where the levers and cranks go, or how to position the crew, here's the product picture from the Warlord Games online shop.

A size comparison of the German SPG in the middle of the US American M7 Priest and British Bishop, along with the Panzer IV, on which chassis this SPG is build upon.

As usual, the built Hummel from different angles.

Along with one shown with the crew.

Conclusion

Similar to the M7 priest, overall a pretty clean cast. The metal parts have some play, for example the doors in the back were a bit tricky to glue on. With a multipart kit like this, especially everything around the main gun, takes a bit of patience as well as properly studying the product pictures / close ups. But I guess, as these are a bit niche in the demand and you can't really combine multiple variants into a single kit, we won't see them as plastic in the near future.

With the Hummel being in service from 1943 to the end of the war, it is pretty limited to it's use in Europe / Eastern Front, not in Northern Africa or with any Axies forces. It wasn't used by other countries after the war either and the only conversion based upon this vehicle, was the ammunition carrier of which a total of 157 units were build. So from a model building point of view, beside adding stowage and maybe a tarp, there is not much you can do. But the large surfaces give you a good chance for some nice camouflage.

The price may not be the cheapest, but fair for a resin kit. Warlord Games offers for the German vehicle crew in winter kit, and I might use that along with to support my late war winter/autumn force of Germans in Western Germany.

Bolt Action is a brand of Warlord Games.