Tiger 1 - S Pz Abt 508, Italy 1944

Here is a DML Tiger 1 with moulded on zimmerit as a sPz Abt 508 vehicle in Italy. The Abt had an unusual method of numbering it's tanks - 1 kompanie vehicles just had a plain "1", 2 kompanie a "2" and so on. Makes life easier I suppose!

I replaced a few tool clamp handles and added wing nuts here and there, plus hollowed out cleaning rod ends but its pretty much OOTB. The driver is an old verlinden resin item, and the commander is by Alpine.

Pz Kpfw IV Ausf H - Russia January 1944

Here is the new DML Pz IV ausf H with moulded on Zimmerit. It's pretty much out of the box, with a few extra additions such as track-link frontal armour and stowage items etc. It was inspired by photos of a 7 PD machine (coded 546) in the Trojca book Pz IV Ausf G/H/J, but it's pretty generic, and the figures are WSS. The figures are a mixture - Cromwell Models, Hobby Fan and an unidentified tank commander figure that I had in the spares box. 

Barkmann's Panther

Here is the DML Panther Ausf A built as Barkmann's vehicle in Normandy. It features some extra etched brass (engine deck screens, spare track holders, tool clamps, chains etc) and home made zimm created with Squadron Green putty and a Tamiya zimm rake. 

I hollowed out the tow crevis and track cable holders and drilled them to allow the retaining pins to be added. The tow cable is spare DML ends with Karaya soft brass cabling.  

Crew are by DML with Hornet heads, and markings are Archer dry-transfers.  I also added periscope lenses using small cut-out rectangles of 35mm photo negative. A classic Steve Zaloga tip!

King Tiger (Porsche Turret)

This is the first edition DML King Tiger (Porsche turret) with a few improvements and tweaks. I added   some little details from the spares box to give it a bit more finesse -- wing nuts for the track holders, some spare photo-etch here and there and Karaya cable for the main tow cables and the transport track cable. 

The zimmerit was hand-applied using my tried and trusted Squadron Green putty and Tamiya zimm rake method. Zimmerit was seldom applied neatly, and for me, the resin sheets you can get don't always hit the right spot - they can be a bit too neat. This might break with some modellers received wisdom, but look closely at wartime photos and you'll see what I mean. I've seen some wartime pics of really horrendously applied zimm that if you replicated it, your model would look hideous. So... for me, doing it yourself strikes a happy medium between the two. 

Back to the model. I had some spare DML King Tiger "Magic Tracks" so I used them instead of the first generation indy links that were in the kit.  I used a spare Aber side skirt to stick between the exhaust stacks, and the kit skirts were carefully cut apart with a jewellers saw and carefully thinned down to a realistic scale thickness around the edges. Doing it this way saves a heap of cash, and look every bit as good as photo-etch.  I'll get on my modelling soap-box again. Why use photo-etch when the styrene part is more in-scale and every bit as detailed? OK, you need it for some parts - or if you are dealing with a poor quality kit - , but modern kits from Dragon, Bronco, AFV Club etc mean that by and large, photo-etch pain is a thing of the past.

The figures were from the Dragon range with Hornet heads. Panzer pink-edged shoulder boards and epaulettes were from the peerless Archer range. Anyway, here it is: