Misc: Current Armour, on the go...

Oldies and newbies.

With a nice kind of symmetry, here's a bunch of older models, and my current crop. Amongst the older ones, the first WWII mini-military model I made on returning to these ol' hobbies, the 1/76 Airfix Panther, in late-war 'ambush' type camo'. This remains one of very few completed models, thus far. The vast bulk of my kits require varying degrees of painting/finishing.

The latest bits of building, today and yesterday, were the rear bins on the newer Airfix Panther, and a second go at the mortar crane/winch, on the B&P Sturmtiger. Whilst I was at it, I also changed the Sturmtiger's upper casemate access hatch handles to wire ones. Looks nicer, methinks.

Rear stowage bins on ye olde Panther, one open.

I really took my time and had a look at a load of ref for the second attempt at the winch. And I think it's come out okay. Nicer, indeed, than the one on the ACM Sturmtiger. I also roughed up the 'fenders' a little, and added some dings and hits to give the ol' beast a more worn in look. I'm looking forward to painting the Sturmtigers. I think I'll go for one of those late war funky three colour disc camo' patterns.

Winch deployed inboard this time.

Suitably chunky for this rather oversize model.

From behind...

Kit Build/Review: Airfix 1/76 Panther #2

White Milliput zimmerit goes on to the hull.

On this second build of an Airfix 1/76 Panther I haven't bothered detailing the box contents or initial build. Instead I've just jumped in at the point where things get more interesting (to me, at any rate!), with detailing the kit. This is part of a current series of 'panzer wrecks' for the battlefields of my putative 20mm WWII wargaming collection.

Rear turret access hatch open.

Chipped zimm...

Zimmerit on the turret as well.

After applying the white Milliput zimmerit to the major areas, I decided to detail a number of other aspects of the kit. Mostly this meant opening a number of hatches; in addition to the easy commander's cupola hatch. In fact nearly all the crew hatches are open. I suspect they all baled out - and sharp-ish, as they haven't destroyed the tank, as per reg's - after hitting a mine and coming under fire once immobilised. The driver's vision hatch and the rear turret hatch (is this the 'loader's hatch'?) both required rather more effort! But I think the results are worth it. 

Both main turret hatches are open.

Driver's hatch also open, as are the two upper hull hatches.

Note different zimm' patterns on turret and hull.

Zooming in on the turret a bit.

Hull glacis up close.

Keen observers might spot that the turret and hull zimm' patterns are different. I've seen this often enough on photos of actual WWII German tanks. But I didn't follow specific reference. I also removed the turret lifting eyes and replaced them with bent stretched sprue, which I think looks a helluva lot better. In addition I scratch-built towing clevises (clevii???), a tow-cable, and added some tools and spare track.

Note missing rear road wheel.

I've scored the kit itself just two and a half 'kreuz this time. Maybe that's a bit harsh? But it is pretty poor. The tracks, for example, are so bad as to be unusable, f-f-f-frankly. Still, it does make a usable base kit for having fun like this with, albeit in the slightly smaller 1/76 scale, as opposed to my preferred 1/72.

Added details: tools, tow-cable, turret lifting eyes, etc.

Am I therefore wasting my time polishing a turd? Perhaps... I've even ordered several OKB Grigorov 1/72 resin Panther track sets. They look amazing online. I want the tracks on this to look nicer than is possible using the awful rubber band jobs that come with the kit. I also took the trouble to make sure the wheels went on without recourse to the oversized 'cap' type doodads that Airfix supply. 

I'm quite keen to add a jack and maybe a bucket at rear. And I may well add the rear stowage bins. Or perhaps jus one? And have the other 'missing in action', with no zimm' where it was... hmmm!?

Kit Build/Review: Revell 1/76 T-34/76, 1940

This is my second 'panzer wreck' build, after the FoV 1/72 Pz III. Only this time it's a Russian tank. It's  also 1/76, for starters, so smaller than my other 1/72 T-34s. But as a battlefield wreck? And a thing in itself? Well... whatever! As they say these days.  

Sprues... inc. ol' Matchbox diorama base.

And the rest.

Vinyl tracks... eugh!

Lacking internal detailing, other than teeth.

Didn't document much of this build.

Gorilla gel superglue sorts vinyl tracks.

Felt pen 'print' template on plastic card, for inner turret hatch detailing.

Added the gun breech, so the open hatch view isn't utterly bare.*

I've built it to look it took a hit or two, conked out and was abandoned. So apart from the shell penetrations and minor wear and tear, it's not in too bad shape. The surviving crew baled out, hence the open hatches, and someone's taken a few bits - the hull m.g. and two fuel tanks are missing - but it's mostly in pretty good shape. 

* Doubtless extending too far into the turret space, but I think it'll look better than empty space.

Hull MG has been removed. Commander's hatch open.

Missing rear mudguard and both fuel barrels, port side.

I did it in this manner on account of the model leading me this way. I thought about having the rear engine access hatch and the engine grill covers open as well. But that presented too any tricky challenges. I'd like to build a real humdinger of a wreck, but, ironically perhaps, a better base/donor kit would make that easier. 

I have a third model on this particular pending pile (I have terrible piles!), that I'd considered either doing as a wreck, or maybe even as a tank being built, which is an Airfix 1/76 Panther. I have the Nürnberg Panther factory book, and quite fancy doing a diorama of a hull under construction in a workshop. But I might entirely scratch-build that, and use the Airfix kit for a battlefield casualty.

Anyroad, re the T-34... TBC...

Misc: Model Mag Haul

Recently picked this lot up, free.

Approx' 40 mags, of which half are Airfix Model World.

 I do love Freecycle. I'm a member of two local groups; one for Cambridge, and the other Fenland. The former is very active, the latter a lot less so. Nonetheless, I just picked up a load of modelling magazines - 40-ish, mostly Airfix Model World and Tamiya Model Mag' International - from someone on the Fenland group.

I'm not sure how many of these I'll keep (nor what I'll do with any I don't keep). But a cursory flick through all of the non-Tamiya titles has revealed numerous articles of interest, sometimes directly - a 1/35 Maultier Ambulance build will aid my 1/72 Opel Ambulance, re interior detailing - and sometimes simply in broader technique terms, as for example general painting/weathering methods, and suchlike.

This 1/35 build by Kev Smith might help me...

... with the interior of my Opel Blitz Ambulance.

Some really helpful visual ref'.

The Tamiya titles, only one of which I've glanced through thus far, seem less likely to be of direct use, as my main scale is 1/72. That said, I do have a few 1/35 kits, including some Tamiya stuff - an 88mm, for example! - so I'll look through them all at some point soon as well. There are also a few aircraft themed titles. Again, of less interest to me, as I'm mostly a land warfare modeller. But that said, I have amassed a pretty large stash of 1/72 WWII German aircraft, and even a few items outside that favoured niche area/scale.

Having thumbed though a good three-quarters of these mags already, one thing very apparent to me is the bewildering array - mind-numbing, perhaps? - of material on offer. The kits themselves, and the humongous amount of ancillary stuff, from the paints and modelling equipment to aftermarket detailing stuff, and decals, to all the reference resources, books, museums, shows, etc. It's amazing! 

In the same issue as the Maultier, there's this 1/76 oddity...

... a captured British armoured staff car/mobile office.

Another thing that constantly astounds and sometimes even bemuses me is the degree of obsessional interest in detail. Very few of the featured builds in these magazines are simple straight out of the box affairs. Most of mine, by contrast, start that way. Adding detail and modifying kits is something I do do, of course. And I'd say it's one of the aspects of this hobby that's potentially the most fun. But it's also an area where the 'anorak'-ish aspect of the hobby can sometimes make me feel ill at ease, most especially at shows or club events where it can become an unattractive form of point-scoring display (rivet counting, I've heard it called).

Having said this, the upside of this obsessional aspect of the way so many of us engage in these hobbies is the abundance of information, which grows continuously, both in print, online, and elsewhere. In case anyone hadn't noticed I've been getting into WWII German 88mm Flak guns recently, and what started as simple out of the box pleasure is evolving into obsessive researching and a desire for a bigger collection of models of this interesting weapon.

Misc: 88mm Flak Madness

MORE FLAK 88 STUFF!

Since recently building a Hasegawa 1/72 Flak 36, and buying the Haynes 'manual' on this famed WWII workhorse (in its several types), I've kind of gone a bit nuts for the 88mm! I just bought another Hasegawa 1/72 kit, this time the Flak 18 variant, and a second 1/76 Airfix kit. The plan is to build these sans armoured shield.

Two new big guns...

One detail that emerged from studying the Haynes manual on the 88, was the absence on most 1/72 or 1/76 kits of any 'erdpfahl', or stakes, on the articulated side legs/arms of the cruciform gun mounts. I need to check, but I think the Zvezda 1/72 models might have them. Certainly the Airfix and Hasegawa don't. A desire to scratch-build these little doodads - used to help cope with gun recoil - perhaps even to batch-produce some in resin, is thus born! 

The erdpfahl, or stakes, are labelled in this German diagram.

Erdpfahl are 'trefoil', three-lobed/winged; part 8, the distinctive holed fins (AFV Club 1/35 PE).

Interest in other details, such as the presence or absence of the crew shield, and how that's mounted (the Zvezda is the best of the kits I've made so far by a long way, in this latter respect), or the rolls of cable on the bogies, and how these facilitate the communications wiring of the guns electronics, starts to rumble into life. Details like the sextant, dials and fuse-calibrator all start to seem more important.

And then there's the issues of deployment and transport: on or off the bogeys? And how about guns with recoil, or mid-firing? What about prime-movers, or guns mounted on vehicles, or even buildings? And how about the 128mm or even 150mm cousins of the 88mm? And I still haven't addressed my latent desire to sculpt my own crews*... This hobby certainly taps right into an obsessional part of the nervous sytem, no doubt about it!

The short video above, with a primitive but effective soundtrack added, uses archival WWII footage (much of which is also colourised) to show the 88mm in action. Fascinating! It leaves me wanting to convert at least one model so as to give it recoil, or depict it in the firing/recoil state.

* I ordered a resin casting kit from a company called Sylmasta.com, with a view to making various parts, like the erdpfahl, some ammo, and perhaps even some crew figures.

Kit Build/Review: Hasegawa 1/72 88mm Flak 36

I quite like building the same thing by different manufacturers. It's nice to have several of any given thing, so one has a unit, for future gaming. In this instance this is my third 88mm Flak gun. One of the others is an Airfix 1/76 version, the other 1/72, by Zvezda. This Hasegawa is the later Flak 36, and comes with crew, ammo and boxes, and the two trailers.

I knew I didn't want to build the crew. For one thing the figures ain't great. And for another, I wanted the crew to be bigger (more figures, not taller or fatter!), better posed/sculpted, and probably dressed differently. I've seen so many pictures of 88mm crews, and very often, due no doubt to the intensity of the physical work, and perhaps the location/climatic conditions, they'll be dressed more casually.

I laid all the parts out, per the steps in the instructions, ready for clean up.

Step one.

Step two.

Step three.

Step four.

Step five.

And so on...

Nearing completion...

Boom...  done. Now it just needs paint and decals. 

The trio of 88mm guns.

So, the model is made. It's better than the Airfix kit, by a long margin (and bigger). But it's not quite as finely detailed as the Zvezda. Actually this might be better, for wargaming purposes. Too fine detail - as many kits for 'pure' model-makers are these days - and the resulting piece is too fragile. At this point I'm not sure how to paint it. But I'm intending to paint it ASAP, and get the decals on. I need to change my long established m.o. of building and then abandoning kits unfinished/unpainted!