Happy New Year! and the concluding part of the Resin Tiger Trio - Tiger 222

 Happy New Year everyone. What better way to usher in 2026 than with a Tiger tank! 

The last of the Resin Tiger Trio, is this one:

A late production model with steel rimmed road wheels, late pattern cupola etc and covered in (very, very finely moulded) Zimmerittt.

A hefty looking beast, I've wanted one of these for ages to use for Panzer Kompanie Hummel at Arnhem (the fourth company of the 506th Schwere Panzer Abteilung). This particular one also sports the turret number 222, Wittmans ride at Villers Bocage, because... well, why not?

Wittmans actual tank was 007, but as is the way with Tigers, 007 was broken down on the day so he had to nab another one.

The actual turret numbers on the 10st SS Schwere panzer Abteilung really stand out as you can see in this image of Tiger 205. They look really crude, like someone has slapped them on with a very big brush from a can of white paint. They rather spoil the dense green/brown disruptive camo! Fans of nose-tail tanks might also note the vehicle spacing on the road....

The Tigers of  the 101st seem to have been very densely oversprayed in camo, so I really went to town on this one. tbh I've probably left too much dunkelgelb showing through but it is still basically a big mess of green and brown.

A pinwash of ink and a light drybrush of pale sand emphasised some of the lowlights and highlights.

The AAMG is an incredibly fine moulding, so I will enjoy it while it lasts. It is bound to get knocked off in use my either my fat fingers or some other clumsy wargamer.

The turret is also festooned in track links. I'm never really sure what colour to paint these. German tracks were painted black out of the factory but it rapidly wore off and it seems a bit odd to have a very non-camouflaged set of tracks hanging off the turret. Anyway I did them black, gave them an inkwash and a light gunmetal drybrush and then dirtied them up a bit so they don't look quite so stark.

Once again I've got the 'towrope right where I want to put a decal' problem, but once again I've got away with just sticking the cross on top the tow rope and painting over it. It actually looks better on this one than the other two.

The turret number 222 is plain white (Battlefront decals maybe?) but doesn't stand out anything like as much as the photo of 205.

Usual mud etc around the running gear, and I highlighted the steel wheel rims with gunmetal which looks OK.

And here is the finished trio. I'm very pleased with that lot, lovely models and they have come out really well and scratched a particular obsessionist itch. I've got scenarios in mind for all of these, which will no doubt appear on the blog in due course.

Resin Tiger Trio Pt 3 - Tiger 131

 Next up in the Resin Tiger Trio, Tiger 131, the most famous Tiger in the world! Or so the Tank Museum at Bovingdon would have you believe. Well, it is a star of film and screen and gets to motor around outside, sometimes.

Anyway, here it is in all its Tunisia camo glory. This one has an early pattern chassis, air filters and turret, but a mid production turret bin, just like the Bovingdon one. Originally it was knocked out and captured in fairly good condition before being ferried back to the UK for examination. In recent decades it has been restored to working condition at the Tank Museum.

The original was painted in a very unusal colour scheme, a brownish sand and an olive grey/green (I can't recall the RAL numbers, but 1/35th scale modelling sites will give all the gory details). The green here is mixed up from Humbrol Army Green and VJ Middlestone and is a decent match for the Tank Museum colour. I haven't got the base colour quite right, it should be a bit browner but it is OK. It is essentially VJ Desert Sand with a bit of Khaki mixed in but at a scale distance it isn't bad.  

Like the Grey Tiger this also got a pinwash around all the raised parts. I did the fire extinguisher grey on this one for contrast. The turret numbers on the real one are plain red, so I hand painted those. I did the basic outline with a Posca Paint Pen, then went over them with red paint and a fine brush. 

The tracks and running gear got a lighter colour mud coating than the other one, and again I picked out the tyres on the wheels. I did the same trick as the other one with the left hand  hull balkan cross and stuck it on over the the tow cable, then painted the cable on top of the decal.

This finally got a very  light drybrush of VJ Pale Sand, which was enough to dirty it up a bit and pick out the highlights. That will do nicely for Tunisia, and will no doubt see action in Sicily, Italy and Russia too.

Resin Tiger Trio Pt 2. The Grey Tiger

 Lets face it, who hasn't wanted a panzer grey Tiger 1? Back in the distant days of the school wargames club in the early 1970s, it was pretty common to paint late war German tanks grey, just because it looked so cool. Now, I do have a few grey 6mm Tigers, aimed at the Russian Front in late 1942 and early 43, but this is my first 15mm one.

Woo, and doesn't it look great. This is the early production Battlefield 3D one I previewed earlier with the straight turret bin. It isn't one of the very first Tigers catastrophically committed near Leningrad in 1942 with the pair of turret bins on each side of the turret though, as that is such a niche vehicle. 

These types saw a fair bit of action on the Eastern Front over the winter of 1942/43, before being repainted dunkelgelb in early 1943.

I've already described the model in an earlier post, but the paint job brings out the moulded on detail nicely. It was undercoated Humbrol Sea Grey and then given a wash of VJ Panzer Grey to darken it and give it some lowlights. It has also come out with a pleasing bluish tone. 

The turret number is 103, which I'm going to claim was Hauptmann Hans Bolter from the 502nd Tiger Bn (as featured in the 'Paw of the Tiger' scenario in AHGCs Squad Leader/Cross of Iron). He was in the same battalion as Otto Carius, but Carius' number was 217 which is so non-standard it doesn't exist in my decal sheets. I assume the 502nd numbered vehicles by company but then just counted the individual vehicles, not the platoons. Or something. 

The stunning moulded detail on the engine deck is even more obvious now it is painted. I did a pinwash around all the tools, tow cable etc to highlight them more. I also picked out the engine deck fire extinguisher in red for some contrast (Tiger 1 fire extinguisher colours are another delightful AFV modellers rabbit hole, they were done in a range of colours).

I applied a certain amount of mud on and around the tracks and running gear. I even had a go at picking out the rubber tyres on the road wheels. The biggest problem was the left hand hull balkan cross, as there is a tow rope moulded onto the hull. I vaguely thought about trying to cut the decals in half, but in the end I stuck the cross over the tow rope, then painted the cable on top of it and it gives the illusion the cross is behind the cable.

The turret numbers came out a bit shuny (Doms Decals) so I covered them with matt varnish and discovered that VJ varnish lifts Doms Decals off... a certain amount of cursing ensued but I got it all to stick down eventually.

The whole thing was finished off with a light drybrush of VJ Iraqi Pale Sand. Now really it should be in snow camo but I couldn't bring myself to do that and I don't have any other snow camo vehicles either so it would just look out of place. The grey will look pretty good against a snow background anyway. 

Battlefield 3D Resin Tiger Trio Pt 1.

 As regular readers will be aware, I already have a number of (metal) Tiger 1s, so why on earth do I need more of them? Well, Tigers crop in all sorts of interesting places and I've frequently been vaguely unhappy with eg using a midwar Tiger as a stand-in for Panzer Company Hummel at Arnhem in late 1944 etc. Anyway, I thought it was time to bite the bullet and scratch this particular obsessive itch. My metal Tiger 1s are all fairly standard mid production models.

And here we are, three Battlefield 3D resin Tiger 1s undercoated and ready to be painted. They all look so similar and yet.... 

Being quite large vehicles, these are all four part models. Hull, turret and a pair of tracks. The master STLs are by Night Sky Miniatures who also did some of the excellent US vehicles I recently got. These are proper scale models, so some of the detail is quite fine.

This is an early production hull and turret. You can see the primitive commanders cupola.

And obviously the engine deck is festooned with all the gubbins which makes up the Fiefel air filters. This one has the smaller straight sided turret bin.

The second Tiger is also an early production model, identical to the first except it has a mid production angled turret bin on the early model turret. This was a custom print very kindly made up by Phil at Battlefield 3D.

And finally we have a vehicle I've never owned before (unless you count the very bodged Airfix kit and a few 6mm ones), a late production Tiger with the Tiger II style steel rimmed wheels. These were far and away the most common types in Northwest Europe in 1944.

Along with the turret being festooned with track links, it also has the later cupola and AAMG mount.

The engine deck is also free of Feifel gubbins. If you look very, very carefully, the hull and turret sides are also covered in Zimmeritt, although in this scale the corrugations very fine.

I don't usually put up pictures of vehicles in undercoat, but it illustrates how they end up when I've prepped them. I usually do them in matt black, then mist them with white spray from about 2' away. It gives an excellent 'tooth' for the top coat and also provides some instant highlights and shading, if you put the paint on thin. The contrast is more marked than the photos show. Many thanks to Dr Faustus Painting Clinic for that method. 

I've got specific plans for each one of these, and I'll post up each model as they are done. That will be bring me up to six Tiger 1s, four Tiger IIs and one Jagdtiger. 

Battlefield 3D Sdkfz 251/10

 After playing a few of the WRG games I was keenly away of my lack of an armed Sdkfz 251 in grey (I have various armed halftracks in three tone camo). The obvious vehicle to get was an Sdkfz 251/10, which entered service in summer 1941.

Models proved surprisingly hard to track down (rather like the US T12 75mm halftrack) but Battlefield 3D do this version with a high gunshield. I would have preferred the low version, but needs must. I had vaguely thought of getting a Zvezda 251 and doing a conversion myself with a spare Pak 36 I happen to have in stock,  but in the end I couldn't be bothered.

This is a resin print with just two parts - the entire halftrack is a single piece print and only the gun is separate. The mounting lug for the gun is tiny, but hopefully I put enough glue on it to keep in place.

This model is perhaps a bit cruder than some of the other B3D models, but I guess it depends on the master STL files. It is still a nice model though, and miles better than eg my SDD 251 which is a just a big lump of crudely cast metal. I suspect that given the fine-ness of the detail, the STL is aimed at larger scale prints.

The tools and doors etc are nicely moulded though. I added the crew myself (none are provided). The standing commander/gunner is a a PSC Sdkfz 251 MG gunner, while the seated bloke is Peter Pig. I was in such a painkiller addled state with my back when I painted this, that I accidentally painted the seated guy as an American! And was then a bit puzzled why I had a spare US crewman apparently wearing a German gas mask tin. I just repainted him.

The external stowage (tarp wrapped around a helmet) is from the mass of stowage in the PSC Sdkfz 251 kit box. The gift which keeps on giving.

This got the same paint treatment as the Pz III and Pz IV. VJ Panzer grey wash over a Humbrol Sea Grey base with a drybrush. The wash has actually worked really well on the wheels, but I picked out the tools with a pin wash. Otherwise I just added a couple of balkan crosses and it is good to go, another useful addition to my ever expanding 'grey' fleet, I've even got a scenario in mind for it. 

Panzergrau Zvezda Pz IV F2

 I had an eye to late 1942/early 1943 battles and thought a grey Pz IV (lang) would be in order to go with my shiny new grey Pz IIIJ/L. 

And what could be better than the Zvezda Pz IV F2? Even though it is badged as a G, it clearly has the globular muzzle brake, so is a 75L43, not a 75L48. Just like the Airfix kit. I picked this one up from the 'plastic kit man' at Partisan earlier this his year for a very reasonable four quid.

Sadly I noted that at The Other Partisan his pile of Zvezda stuff was almost completely depleted. I suppose everything comes to an end eventually. 

Regular readers will recall I already have one of these serving with the Afrika Korps. It is an easy model to assemble, and like so many Zvezda kits,  still so much nicer than many 3D prints. One feature it does have is an awful lot of clutter on the hull and quite large vision ports on the turret - all of which get in the way of putting decals on. That box just behind the drivers left hand vision port is particularly annoying as on most models there is room for a balkan cross there.

As you can see I ended up putting the turret numbers and one balkan cross on the back. I added a couple of extra bits of stowage, a PSC Jerrycan and a spare wheel (maybe from a PSc Stug?). There is quite a lot going on in terms hull furniture already, which is perfect when trying to paint a monochrome vehicle as there is lots of raised detail to keep it interesting.

It just sits really well as a model and looks like a Pz IV should do. This one got the same treatment as the Pz III, a base coat of Humbrol Sea Grey then a thin wash of VJ Panzer Grey. Mud all over the running gear and then a light drybrush of VJ Iraqi Sand. Unusually I painted all the tyres on the wheels, the final drybrush covered up where I'd splashed black paint onto the wheel centres, but surprisingly they look a lot better for being painted. I also picked out some of the tools with a pinwash and highlighted them in metal and/or wood.

Intothe grey tank box it goes, and at some point I'll figure out a game to use it in! 

Panzergrau Zvezda Pz IIIj

 Who doesn't love a grey Panzer III? I already have a bunch of grey Peter Pig Pz IIIG/H which have seen extensive service on various fronts, but they are all 50L42 versions. It occurred to me that for actions from mid 1942 onwards (2nd Kharkov? Stalingrad?) it might be handy to have a 50L60 variant too.

And here it is in its grey wonderfulness. Zvezda don't actually make a Pz IIIj, this is their Flammpanzer III kit with the gun sanded down lightly. It is such an exquisite model though, that I already have three of them. 

This one is pretty easy to assemble, but still has several parts. They all go together cleanly and although it is designed to be push fit, I applied glue in sensible places. There is a moderate amount of hull furniture on it already, so I just added an ammo box on the rear deck and a commander (metal Battlefront figure I think - it is a pretty crude casting, typical of early BF). I didn't attempt to model the open hatch covers as they'd just get knocked off.

The box on the rear deck is a PSC one from the Russian 76mm gun with the lid cut off and turned upside down. The spare wheel is moulded on already. Sorry, this photo is a bit blurry. It is supposed to show all the nice stuff moulded onto the model.

This side view demonstrates what a dogs dinner this kit is. The hull is from a Pz IIIe (you can clearly see the lower side escape hatches), and it also has the early pattern drive wheels and no spaced armour on the hull front. The new turret is just plonked on the wrong hull. Fortunately the mantlet spaced armour is very distinctive and distracts from the other wrongness. The gun needed sanding as the 50L60 gun tapoers whereas the flamethrower is just a straight tube.

Panzergrau is a slippery shade, and it can often be far too dark. It fades rapidly, and is often depicted as having a bluish tinge (that varied by paint batch). For this I base coated it in Humbrol Sea Grey, which is a mid blue grey. Then it got a thin wash of Vallejo Panzer Grey, which is so dark it is almost black. The wash stained the Sea Grey nicely and also provided some shading.

Then it just got a good slathering of 'mud' all over the running gear and lower hull (which always looks good on grey or green vehicles) and a light overall drybrush of VJ Iraqi Sand to pick out the highlights and lighten it up a bit. The decals are all Battlefront, I couldn't be bothered to attempt a three digit turret number and just went with two.

Battlefield 3D Marmon Herrington Mk III

 With an eye to my planned Megablitz game at COW, I wanted to expand my British desert armoured car collection. I've already got a QRF Marmon Herrington Mk II, so I fancied something similar but different.

And here is an absolutely gorgeous Battlefield 3D resin Marmon Herrington Mark III. A fascinating vehicle as it mounts a Boys ATR and no less than two Vickers guns, one as a coax!

This is a joy to 'assemble' as there isn't any assembly. The hull and turret are just single piece prints, so no sticking on wheels, MGs to get knocked off or anything like that. What a lovely model and not a striation in sight. It even has the correct treads printed on the tyres.

My only slight anxiety is the relatively thin ATR gun barrel, but if it gets snapped off I can always replace it with wire I suppose.

Like so many 'box' armoured cars, it has lots of nice sharp edges to take a drybrush. I thought about adding some stowage but it is quite a busy vehicles already with its spare wheel, various tools and all sorts of things seemingly welded to the hull.

I did this in three tone Caunter (dark green over grey over sand) to join my early desert armoured car fleet. The desert sand basecoat got an inkwash, then a heavy drybrush of desert sand again, then I did the camo, pinwashed around some of the highlights, and did an overall drybrush of pale sand. It looks suitably battered an dusty I think.

Here it is next to my QRF Mk II. If a picture speaks a 1000 words, I think this clearly demonstrates why traditional manufacturers are in big trouble in the face of the 3D print revolution. The QRF one is a nice enough model, but it is pretty crude in comparison to the print, and it has lots of fiddly bits which needed sticking together. Getting the wheels to stick on the QRF one was particularly nightmarish. 

Having seen the B3D one though, it looks like I need to adjust the direction of the turret mounted Vickers on the QRF one. 

Battlefield 3D Sherman Crab

More fun stuff for the Allies! was vaguely thinking about D-Day scenarios and Funnies and thought I should beef up my collection of armoured engineering vehicles. I was buying a load of stuff from Battlefield 3D anyway, and they have all sorts of things in their huge US range so.....

I ended up with this completely impractical Sherman Crab!

Now this is the sort of model which in 20mm would be a fiendishly complex kit with a million parts. But not this resin 3D print, which has precisely two parts. A turret and a hull, the latter has all the mineclearing gubbins moulded on.

I had seriously thought about converting one of my spare Shermans into one of these, but this is just so much easier, if less satisfying.

This is a slightly cruder model than some of the B3D offerings as you can see from the engine deck, but the mine gear, pistons etc are very finely printed.

It sits very nicely though and looks just like the great hunk of metal it is.

It just got painted plain OD, and I added allied stars as none of these were sent to Russia. I puzzled a bit over which bits of the mine clearing gear to paint and in the end I did the piston shafts and drive shaft as oily metal. The actual rotating shaft I did OD but the mine chains are bare metal with a  liberal applications of mud and a wash. The whole thing got a lot of dust drybrushed onto it, particularly around the front, but t doesn't show up too well in the photos.

This one is a bit of indulgence, rather like the armoured bulldozer I got last year, but I have got a few scenarios in mind where it might get used. I'm sure you can never have too many armoured engineering vehicles.

 

Battlefield 3D T12 75mm SP

 Along with the M8, another US vehicle I've been vaguely thinking of converting for ages, is the SP 75mm halftracks Tank Destroyer. I've got loads of unbuilt M3 halftracks and I've even got a spare long barrelled gun, but I've just never quite got around to to doing one.

But lo and behold, Battlefield 3D come riding to the rescue with this beautiful Night Sky Models rendering. Pete doesn't normally print the NSM models in 1/100th as they are so finely detailed, but this one came out really well.

This is the earlier model without the more enclosed gun shield. For some reason loads of 3D printers do the 105mm version (which is pretty useless for most things unless you want to do Kellys Heroes) but the 75mm version does not appear to exist apart from this one.

The detail is very fine as the master is aimed at larger scale models, you can just see the v. thin forward gun shield supports which are a fraction of a mm across. This is supplied as a multi part kit with separate wheels, tracks, driver, gun+crew and a separate loader. It went together easily with mixture of UHU and superglue though.

I really like the folded down front screen, and the driver is actually holding the wheel and gear stick, while wearing shirt sleeve order. He just looks so natural.

The main missing peice is a .50 cal AAMG which is supposed to be on that pole in the back, but there is no way I could figure out how to fix it on so it would stay there for any length of time. I might fix a plastic one with a tubular collar, but I think it nk it would still be very fragile. 

The two crew are printed integrally with the gun, so there is no need to position them in a fiddly manner. Why can't other printers do this? There was a third gunner holding a shell and he ended up in the turret of the M8. 

Like the driver, the figures are beautifully proportioned and animated. No bloated dwarves here, more like 1/100th scale AB miniatures.

I just did this plain OD with a liberal application of mud all over the lower areas. I picked out the tools but didn't add any markings as I have a vague idea some of these might have been sent to Russia (or maybe a 57mm variant?). Anyway, I'd like to keep the option.

I'm delighted with that and I'm planning on re-doing my Kasserine Pass scenario just so I can incorporate this into the game.

Battlefield 3D M8 "Scott"

 An interesting variant of the M5 Stuart was the M8 Gun Motor Carriage, a 75mm howitzer mounted in an open turret. I've vaguely hankered after one of these for a while and even downloaded some plans with a view to converting one of my spare PSC M5s, but the complexity of the turret shape put me off.

Anyway, Battlefield 3D came riding to the rescue with this very nice model of one.

This model is better than most with exquisite detail (possibly it is one of the outstanding Night Sky Miniatures STLs?). It is mainly single piece with a separate turret and .50 cal MG which stuck on fine) . Unfortunately the crew (not supplied) obscure the lovely interior detail in the turret.

The tools on the engine deck are nicely modelled. I picked them out with a pinwash here.

The crew are a cut down Battlefront jeep crewman and a resin figure from another Battlefield 3D vehicle. He is even holding a 75mm shell in his hand! The turret space is very restricted so I had to cut off most of their bodies and trim their torsos down.

I just did this one in plain OD although it has a darker green wash for shading, coupled with a light drybrush. I added Allied stars to it as it wasn't a vehicle sent to Russia via Lend Lease (afaik anyway). I usually like to keep the LL option but not in this case. I also figured that a tank with an unusual silhouette was going to have very prominent national markings on it to avoid any 'unfortunate accidents'.

Neil of Aufklarungsabteiling noted recently that the PSC Stuarts are way over scale. Here you can see in order (L-R) - a QRF M3 Stuart, the M8 Scott and finally one of the PSC bloaters. I know the M5 hull was slightly taller than the M3, but even so...

And here are both M5s hulls next to each other. The PSC hull is a bit exaggerated due to the rear stowage bin, but you can still see how much larger the basic hull is. That is a bit of a poor show really, although as all my M5s are PSC, it shouldn't show up on the table too much.