Marder II (Sd Kfz 131)

Posted by lorenzoimcabrio

The third German tank hunter I am going to build is one of the earlier ones, a Marder II. This vehicle is more a self propelled anti-tank gun, based on the carriage of the Panzer II and either a Russian 7.62mm gun (Sd Kfz 132) or the German 75mm Pak 40. As such, it has an open fighting compartment, with a lot of details to be shown, and only limited protection for the crew. Despite this and the very high silhouette that made hiding and/or camouflaging difficult, it was a successful interim solution, until “real” tank hunter like the Jagdpanzer 38 (Hetzer) became available.

The build is based on a Dragon kit (6423), with PE parts from Voyager (base set and fenders) and Friul tracks. The quality of the Dragon kit is mixed, with some very detailed parts (e. g. the Pak itself), but a lot of detail lacking inside the vehicle. Also the usual upper/lower hull part split really makes no sense for this vehicle, so the first step consists of cutting the upper hull into pieces, and cutting of the fenders.

I also bought a Nuts&Bolts volume on this vehicle, which is very helpful as it contains a lot of reference photos from museum vehicles, that help a lot to understand the build of the original vehicle, and which details have to be added. Together with some more pictures available on the Internet, I was pretty confident in having enough references available. So I started to build the first stage of the interior, that then will be painted and weathered, before the remaining parts will be built and added later. And as said above, I needed some time to really understand and being able to replicate the original build.

The pictures then show the state right before the first round of painting:

As can be seen, the engine housing is more or less the original kit part, but the fuel tank has to be build from scratch, as the original part has way too thick sides. The gearbox also can be used without a lot of modifications, but around it and on the sides of the interior, a lot of detail has to be added. I also started to rebuild the upper part of the drivers’ compartment from sheet styrene, as the original part is also way too thick and completely misses the internal structure that will be at least partly visible from outside. I also plan to open the drivers’ viewing hatch, which will be also much easier using scratch built parts.

Jagdtiger

Posted by lorenzoimcabrio

The next tank hunter I have finished is the ultimate heavy weight, the Jagdtiger. A small number of those had a Porsche design suspension (all other a Henschel drive like the Tiger II tank), and I like the look of it. So I decided to build one of those vehicles, also featuring Zimmerit. The vehicle is tank number 314, which belonged to the heavy tank hunter unit 653, and was originally abandoned on March 17, 1945, near Strassbourg. I also depicted an abandoned vehicle, inspected by American soldiers, but in a slightly different setting.

The kit is from Dragon, and comes with Zimmerit. I also bought a complete detail set from Aber, containing PE parts and a new barrel. The figures are from Alpine and were built out of the box. I decided to sand of the original Zimmerit and to do it own my own, using Magic Sculp. This is a very tedious excercise, and I would presumably use something different now. The great advantage of home made Zimmerit is that you are in complete control of the application, but there seem to be some very high quality resin offerings around. I would not use PE Zimmerit, as it presumably does not feature the coarseness and irregularities of the original material. One problem with the Magic Sculp I used is that the edges look to “soft”, so perhaps it makes more sense to use some other putty next time.

As there is no interior to be built, construction went quite fast. Below are the pictures of the finished tank, put on a base. Actually the figures help to illustrate the enormous size of the vehicle, and the impressive size main gun as well.

Jagdpanzer IV/70 (V)

Posted by lorenzoimcabrio

I started to work on German tank hunters, and finished my first vehicle, the Jagdpanzer IV with the long-barreled 75mm gun. The version I built is the Vomag one, with the super low silhoutte. From a design perspective, I really like this vehicle, and being a closed armoured vehicle, the build took not long, as there is no interior to be detailed like with the earlier self-propelled anti-tank guns, like the Marders.

The kit is from Tamiya, with a aluminium barrel and PE sets added from Aber. I also exchanged the Tamiya figures with Alpine offerings. As a reference, I bought the Nuts & Bolts volume 38, and also used one of the color schemes provided there as inspiration.

One of the books of Michael Rinaldi (Tankart 4) features a white-washed Hetzer, and I really liked the look of it, so I decided to do a distressed white-wash as well over a hard-edged three tone camo scheme. I think this makes the vehicle more interesting, as it features many flat surfaces (like the Hetzer), that need some good painting and weathering to avoid looking boring.

I will continue with the tank hunters, having almost finished the next beast, a Jagdtiger. But find below some pictures of the Jagdpanzer IV.