Tamiya 1/48 Brick Wall, Sand Bag & Barricade Set

There are a lot of products on the market that simply don't picture or describe the contents exactly on the packaging.  I cannot stand this, and have always hesitate to purchase these items in the past.

 I'm assuming others feel the same, and so in an effort to aleviate some of the mystery surrounding these products I've decided to review them here as I pick them up.

Tamiya has several sets of 1/48 accessories.  I have purchased all of them, but today we'll start with the 1/48 Brick Wall, Sand Bag & Barricade Set.  This box retails for $13.50.

1/48 scale is about 33mm.  This may make these items too big for true 25mm figures.  For modern "28mm" figures, that range anywhere from 28mm- 32mm and are on a thickish base as well, this kit appears to work fine.

The cover of the box shows two brick walls, 6 tank obstacles and a sandbag position.  Not pictured on the cover, but on the side of the box, are wooden posts that can be used as fenceposts or used to create pylons for barbed wire.  So how much of this stuff do we actually get?  Let's take a look:

This is the full contents of the box.  There are three total frames; one of tank obstacles and wooden posts, and two of sandbags and brick walls.  Also included are single page, double printed instructions and an advertisement for other Tamiya 1/48 kits. 

There are enough tank obstacle components to construct eight of them.  That's two more than on the box cover!  Score! 

There are 24 wooden posts, which will allow you to build four of the barbed wire pylons.  They can also be used for regular posts, or anything else you'd need a log for.  Four doesn't seem like very many obstacles for wargaming.  Also, there is no barbed wire included in the kit.  There are instructions on how to make very decorative wire, or Pegasus Hobbies sells some too.  A review of that will come soon.

Looking at the other sprues we get 58 sandbags.  These are flat and hollow, and look like they stack up quite nicely.  It's too bad one can't buy just the sprues of sandbags.  It looks like there's enough sandbags to make two emplacements similar to the one pictured on the box cover.

The walls are excellent as well.  They are completely modular, so the half walls can be put together to make full walls, and they all interlock.  There is significantly more wall here than pictured on the box cover.  One could make a good size ruined building with one kit.

So that's all of it.  I think it's an excellent deal for $13.50, and will be picking up more.  The pieces are generic enough to be used in any modern setting from WWII to the future.  My only complaint is that they come in this "variety pack."  It would be nice if one could buy just brick walls, or sandbags, etc. 

If I didn't answer any questions, please ask!

UPDATE:

People had asked for pictures of the pieces next to models for scale reference, so here we go!


Here is a 25/28mm Amazon Miniatures Secrets of the Shadow Reich figure, along with a Confrontation AT-43 walker and a Lindberg 1:48 Tiger model set up with an assembled wall section.

Here is a close- up of the wall.  This ruined corner was made by stacking 3 wall sections on top of each other.  The wall appears brown because I used a sand blasting gun to weather and distress the piece.

Here we see the three models again in front of the tank obstacles.

And finally, a close up of the sandbags around the Amazon Miniature.  I tried to stack them, but they are slippery and did not want to stay in place for this shot.