The British howitzer (25 pounder), was the standard gun for the British Army throughout the Second World War. Offering good ballistic performance, the also had the advantage of being highly mobile (thanks to the Morris Quad towing tractor). Each gun was towed together with its own ammunition trailer to ensure good firing autonomy without having to rely on supplies from logistic services.

Those familiar with small scale armor will immediately recognize this as being one of the older ESCI kits. I've been told that this is a combination of two kits into one package, and it makes sense that the gun and tractor would be boxed together as the set just naturally goes together. You get four sprues of tan plastic and a nice decal sheet.

The molding of the kit is very nicely done, though thanks to the age of the molds, we do have to suffer through the usual ejector pin marks on many of the parts. While some will be easy to remove or hide, this isn't always the case so have your filler and sandpaper ready for this one. Basically, you have two sprues for the Morris Tractor, one for the ammo cart and one for the 25 pounder. There are six figures included with this one so that you can do a nice diorama should you desire to do so. No transparencies are included, which is pretty well standard for this scale. However, they are easy to make out of clear acetate as there are no curves to deal with.

Instructions are quite well done with color information provided in Model Master and FS 595 color references as well as generic color name. For markings, there are four photo-realistic guides for units operating in the Western Desert, Italy and Normandy. Camo choices are overall Sand, Sand/Black disruptive or Medium Green/Black disruptive. A number of very nice choices for this one. Decals seem to be well done as modern Italeri decals are a real pleasure to use.

I think it is great that Italeri is reissuing all these great ESCI kits. Not only are the kits still very nice, but it is even better that there are decent decals included as the old ESCI sheets could be a problem. No need to pay collector prices, either!