Depicted as “Cuckoo”, a vehicle captured by the 4th Battalion Coldstream Guards operating in the Netherlands in 1944/45. This is quite a famous vehicle and there some wartime footage of it in action on YouTube.
This kit was built as an entry for the 2024 NSW Scale Model Show's Panzer Tracks Trophy. The theme being "In Enemy Hands".
The Kit
- Tamiya 1/48 German Panther Type G Kit No 32520
Aftermarket
The Build
Like all these Tamiya 48 scale armour kits, assembly is pretty straightforward so I won't bore you with the details. Suffice to say follow the instructions and you will be fine..
The tracks are base coated with a 50/50 mix of Tamiya German Grey and red Brown.
For weathering tracks I just can’t get past pigments. I have watched a heap of YouTube videos with different methods but I always come back to pigments. Tracks go in dirt and pigments are just dirt.
I have used Mike Rinaldi’s methods in the past and they work for me so I just did the same again. Three mixes of pigments, light, mid and dark. Each mix has multiple different pigments in it. These are applied with various old brushes and set with X20A.
Darker marks are splatters of Mr Weathering Color Stain brown flicked from a brush of and old airbrush needle.
The Zimmerit is laser cut paper and looks excellent and in scale. Being paper some care is needed to apply it. No instructions are provided but it’s obvious where the pieces go.
I used Ammo Ultra Glue to secure it to the model and this worked well, even over tight curved surfaces. Fit of the Zimmerit is pretty good overall although some trimming was needed. I used a new razor blade to trim any overhangs. Joins were filled with Perfect Plastic Putty and Vallejo water-based putties. I tried to add some texture to these joins, but I wasn’t entirely successful.
A tow cable was made from 0.020 “ aircraft safety wire. I really should have used thinner wire and more stands. I’ll remember that for next time.
After seeking advice from a mate (and Panther expert TSD) some generic mesh was used to cover the vents and grills on the rear deck. Various bits of stowage were added using reference photos as guidance. Wire was used to secure the stowage rather than rope.
Painting and Weathering
After masking out the running gear with tin foil I painted the model Scale Model Supplies (SMS) PL152 Olive Drab SCC15. SCC15 Olive Drab is a colour which seems to have many shades, but I really like the SMS version.
Originally, I had intended to paint the Star. But after looking at the reference photos I noticed how deformed the Star was, so I decided to try the decals. These were applied directly over the SMS painted paper Zimmerit with no gloss coat. Microscale Set and Sol were used to set the decals and once everything dried no silvering was evident.
Details were now picked out with various Vallejo acrylics. A gloss coat was then applied to seal the model in preparation for a pin wash. Abteilung (ABT) 502 Sepia was used for the pin wash.
A couple of coats of hairspray was applied to the whole model followed by two light coats of Tamiya XF2 flat white over the model, excluding the sides of the turret. After waiting about 10 minutes I commenced removing the whitewash. As the hairspray was very fresh the white paint came off easily. In many places too much came off so I mapped it back in with thinned white Vallejo grey paint.
The white stripes on the turret were brush painted with thinned white Vallejo grey paint to match the references.
More washes, again using ABT 502 Sepia along with Industrial earth was used for this. Some of the stowage was repainted with Vallejo acrylics to remove the whitewash.
The Base
One of the things I wanted to try on this build was to include some water. The basic idea was the vehicle travelling along a track with a small creek or drainage ditch on one side.
As usual the base was made from insulation foam then covered with artists texture paste mixed with Tamiya Texture Paint Soil Effect Dark Earth.
Vegetation was static grass, which was then painted with de-saturated colours like Tamiya Khaki, Buff and dark yellow.
AK Interactive Diorama Series Resin Water 2-part epoxy was used for the water. This was mixed as per the instructions and applied using a pipette. Bubbles were removed with a gas soldiering iron. As I was applying the epoxy I noticed it had crept up on the side of the groundwork nearest the edge of the base. This resulted the ground being glossy so I had to redo the vegetation in that area.
Once the new grass had set, it was painted in the same colours as the original grass. Ripples on the water were done by using AK Interactive Acrylic Water Gel – Transparent applied with an old brush.
AK Snow sprinkles was used to try and simulate white water foam around the rocks and edges of the stream.
The snow was AK interactive Diorama Series Acrylic Terrains – Snow. I was quite disappointed with this as a product. It seemed to discolour straight away and doesn’t look quite like snow. In the past I’d used baking powder, white pigments and artists texture paste which I think looked better.
The tank was integrated into the base by applying some Tamiya Texture Paint Soil Effect Dark Earth to the tracks and then using this to stick it to the base. More of the Texture Paint was used to simulate mud on the running gear and hull. In hindsight more could have been applied to add further texture and dirt.
Conclusion
I am happy with how this turned out. The kit is typical Tamiya 48 scale armour, easy to build and detailed enough for me. The paper Zimmertt looks better than I thought and was simple to apply. I was worried about washes etc attacking the paper but this turned out to be unfounded.
The stream also turned out better than I’d expected, and the process was easier than I’d expected. I will be doing some more water on future bases, if only to use up the products.
The Photos
