SPA Modeler

Your StuG is looking beautiful. Hope to make it to the Patton Armor Museum outside Ft. Knox this year they are doing renovations on it right now but hear they have some German stuff also.

Floki wrote:Your StuG is looking beautiful. Hope to make it to the Patton Armor Museum outside Ft. Knox this year they are doing renovations on it right now but hear they have some German stuff also.

Most, of not all, of the good stuff has been moved to Ft. Benning, GA when the Army moved the armor center from Knox.

Stikpusher wrote:Kari, those are great photos. I can’t recall ever seeing a Panzer in person myself. No museum that I have yet visited had one in their collection. I have seen plenty of Soviet/Chinese/ComBloc stuff, and a bit of IJA stuff, in museums. But never a Panzer. You just added a bucket list item for me.

Those Stug photos are great. Yes, they are all G versions. But there is some variety among them. The gate guard looms to be standard production, although there is something in front of the drivers view port. #2 and #4 are later production with the rounded “saukopf” mantlet. #4, also has a good example of the “waffle” type zimmerit, and seeing how no MG shield is visible, may have been fitted with the final production low profile MG that allows the crew to shoot while buttoned up. #3 is interesting in that it has additional armor plates bolted onto the hull front and sides. Thanks for sharing those.

Thanks Carlos, fantastic information!

Sorry Kenny spamming these pictures.. but this is so interesting!

Here is one picture (one of the very few closeups I have of the StuGs), this of the waffle type zimmerit (did not even know differencies with zimmerits)


- Kari

KSaarni wrote:

Stikpusher wrote:Kari, those are great photos. I can’t recall ever seeing a Panzer in person myself. No museum that I have yet visited had one in their collection. I have seen plenty of Soviet/Chinese/ComBloc stuff, and a bit of IJA stuff, in museums. But never a Panzer. You just added a bucket list item for me.

Those Stug photos are great. Yes, they are all G versions. But there is some variety among them. The gate guard looms to be standard production, although there is something in front of the drivers view port. #2 and #4 are later production with the rounded “saukopf” mantlet. #4, also has a good example of the “waffle” type zimmerit, and seeing how no MG shield is visible, may have been fitted with the final production low profile MG that allows the crew to shoot while buttoned up. #3 is interesting in that it has additional armor plates bolted onto the hull front and sides. Thanks for sharing those.

Thanks Carlos, fantastic information!

Sorry Kenny spamming these pictures.. but this is so interesting!

Here is one picture (one of the very few closeups I have of the StuGs), this of the waffle type zimmerit (did not even know differencies with zimmerits)


- Kari

Kari,

No need to apologize! You can always post as many pics as you want in my threads, you take great photos and they’re helpful!

Zimmerit is an interesting feature, and not a one size fits all situation. There were a few distinctive patterns sported by only a particular type of vehicle.
First up a little background on the stuff: it was introduced in that latter half of 1943 as a protective measure against handheld magnetically attached shaped charges. The Germans had developed such an anti tank weapon and only naturally devolved a counter measure as they figured that their enemies would also create the same type of weapon- the Allies never did. So late summer 1943 it starts being applied at the factories as supplies become available. It is applied to surfaces that are vulnerable to foot soldiers attaching such devices: hull and turret sides, frontal and real hull plates, some fender and schurzen areas. It’s not applied to top deck areas of the hull or turret. There are also photos of earlier produced vehicles having what appear to be field applications of the stuff. It was discontinued at the factory application in early fall 1944, around the same time as the switch in base color on AFVs went from Dunkelgelb to Rotbraun primer.

Getting down to distinctive types. The most common type, seen on Panzer IV family types, the Tiger family, etc. has the “waves” or “serrations” in a horizontal pattern, with the jog or change every foot or so. The Panther family had two variations: the serrations or waves were vertically oriented, with the same jog distance seen. Occasionally a diamond cross hatch pattern can be seen cut into the vertical pattern. One other distinct pattern, that appears only on Panther type vehicles, is a vertical & horizontal grid, with no serrations, cut into the paste, giving a rough tile like look. Then the last type, as already seen here, is the “waffle” type pattern, stamped into the paste, used only on Stug.IIIs.

Have fun with your Panzers!

That is quite an interesting explanation. I honestly had no idea why thy did this to their tanks. Thank you!

LyleW wrote:

Floki wrote:Your StuG is looking beautiful. Hope to make it to the Patton Armor Museum outside Ft. Knox this year they are doing renovations on it right now but hear they have some German stuff also.

Most, of not all, of the good stuff has been moved to Ft. Benning, GA when the Army moved the armor center from Knox.

Well I hate to hear that the farthest I get south is back home to Tennessee.

Kari, them are some great photos.

I have gotten started on the tools, here’s the first batch:



I sprayed them with XF-1 and then dry brushed Vallejo’s “Natural Steel” on them. Handles come next- the cool red for the wire cutters, and wood for the rest.

Also, just for the Hell of it, I got started painting Fritz the Tank Captain. They included a nice figure so why not?





I’ve never done figures. So this is version 3.0 of my first attempt.

Very subtle drybrushing around the edges and welds and surface details on the StuG:







AND my Milliput came in the mail, so I filled in those troubling gaps on my Firefly using the Bruce Cooper Method:





I like that putty a lot better than the others I’ve used. Way easier to work with.