Italeri DAK

The new 1/72nd scale Italeri DAK set is very good, but a bit too large IMHO. The figures are a full 25mm tall and are a chunky style. They are a bit large when compared to everyone elses DAK sets. Airfix, Revell and Esci all make very good DAK sets and making a fourth good set would be difficult, had this set matched the others in size it would have been as good as the others. As seen in this photo with the Airfix DAK, their weapons are rather chunky.

The Italeri mortar crew is a huge improvement over the Esci mortar. There is a bipod and two man crew for example, but the bipod sort of hangs in the air. Revell makes a great US Army mortar set, even Airfix Russians made a decent mortar in the early 1960's! There is no reason for this problem.

Even with the thicker base the Esci figure is still smaller than the Italeri. This scale creep is a real problem.

Here is the Esci grenade throw and the Italeri grenade thrower. As you can see the Italeri guy is very animated and most all of the Italeri figures are well sculpted. There is no flash on the set and the only two part item is the bipod for the mortar. The plastic will not accept glue and the bipod does not attach solidly without it.

The Esci officer is in a good pose, but the Italeri figure is very nice, the detail is fantastic. He is an excellent figure. My intention before I first saw them was to buy about 12 boxes, but since I have seen how large they are I will probably cut that down to four. They will be used as the mortar company for my Esci DAK battalion.