Stug III C/D Upgunned

As the war progressed, older vehicles - where possible - were refurbished and equipped with better armour and bigger armament. This early war Stug III C/D was re-equipped with the longer L/48 75mm gun and saukpf (pigs-head) cast mantlet to replace it's short barrelled 75mm. It's the DML C/D with replacement barrel and saukopf from the StuH 42 kit.

Late-war Stug III Ausf G

This is my rendition of a late-late war Stug III with "swinging schurzen" - side skirts that are mounted on tubular pipes welded to the fenders to allow the skirts to swing if they hit an obstacle. The model is based on a famous piece of late war colour film of a number of Stugs and StuH's manouvering in a field. I went to great pains to accurately replicate both the vehicle and the paint scheme. The base model is the DML StuH 42, with Voyager side skirts in photo-etch:

Panther G - Disc Pattern Camouflage

Panther G - Disc Pattern Camouflage

It used to be an extremely difficult task to replicate the late war "disc" pattern camouflage on Panthers and Jagdpanzer IV's. No longer. A simple stencil mask by German firm "Uschi van der Rosten (I kid you not!) is applied to the areas to be affected by the stencil, and voila! Job jobbed. Very much like the real thing where large rubberised sheets were applied to the three-colour sprayed paint job to complete the unique "ambush" style scheme. Here's some images of a commissioned Panther G using the stencils:

I used the same stencils for my Jagdpanzer IV/70(V) so they are pretty economical. I reckon you can get 2-3 uses out of the same stencils, which means around 8-10 per pack. Bargain!

Late war Hetzer

Hetzer - late war

This is the excellent new Academy Hetzer (late) which was built pretty much OOTB. I've built several DML Hetzers and the relatively new Tamiya Hetzer, but for me the Academy one eclipses both. It's easy to build, and goes together like a dream. It also features a handy set of paint masks to create the factory applied "ambush" camouflage scheme. Check out the pics:

Pz III Ausf N -- Late war survivor

Pz III Ausf N -- Late war survivor

I'm a big fan of late war German armour, whether it's a fresh from the factory Panther or a veteran thrown into the fray. One of the latter is this early-mid war Pz III Ausf N support tank, armed with a short barrelled 75mm gun. It features in one of the excellent "Panzerwrecks" series of books, and also in the equally superb AK-interactive "1945 German Colors" volume: