As WWII started, the never-ending race for improved firepower and armor protection also began. The German Panzer IV started life as a fire support vehicle for the Panzer III gun tank, but the demands of the battlefield forced it to adopt the role of a gun tank, and to alter the design of the tank itself with a longer-barreled gun. The Pz. IV Ausf. H is a good example of this transition. The Ausf. H has additional armored skirts around the turret and hull sides and was fitted with the powerful Kw.K.40 L/48 75mm gun.

Here's another great new-generation "Smart Kit" from Dragon, a series of high-detail, low-hassle kits featuring clever engineering and employing the latest in slide-mold technology to achieve the highest level of detail with the lowest number of parts. The philosophy here is "work smarter, not harder," catering to the OOTB (Out Of The Box) modeler who wants a high fidelity of detail and accuracy without having to make a ton of modifications or additions along the way. The kit still includes plenty of parts, to be sure, but the clever engineering means modelers will face fewer hurdles getting them all together. The easy-to-assemble individual-link Magic Tracks are already cleaned up and are ready to be assembled, and represent the 40cm-wide Panzer IV tracks. The kit includes newly-tooled hull and turret parts for the Ausf. H version, side skirts made of metal, photo-etched metal detial parts, and more. Markings are included for five vehicles. See what's so smart about Dragon's new series of "Smart Kits" by ordering this Panzer IV for your German AFV collection today!