Sd. Kfz. 251/9 ‘Stummel’ – Panzergrenadier heavy weapons support

I commenced work on those Revell Panthers a couple of weekends back because I’d finished those three Hasegawa 251/9 ‘Stummels’ – they had just been sitting around on my hobby table waiting for me to stop running around so busily and take a couple of piccies of them. The one time I was ready to photograph them, the weather wasn’t – heavy rain pounded down all morning. My photos are all taken using morning sunlight, but in the shade and without flash. That way, the lighting and colouring looks as natural as possible. With pounding rain, the possibility of photographing the 251/9s was thwarted.

These are similar to the 234/3 ‘Stummel’ that I did two months ago – the 75mm L24, its gun laying mechanism & gun bed are all identical. Assembling the kit was very straightfoward. I elected not to put any crew figures in – the Italeri chap I put in with the 251/22 was a bit too big for the vehicle (ie. his scale was not 1/72…possibly 1/70) and I didn’t want the same odd look with these…but since I have a surplus of crew figures from the Hasegawa 234/2 Puma kits, I might use one of those figures in the future, as they are to scale with their vehicle.

How many more to do? The Panzerfaust army list for Panzergrenadier companies gives me a pair of 251/9’s as a heavy weapons cannon section for s standard company.  A Panzergrenadier heavy weapons company has a cannon company, comprised of three sections with each section having two 251/9s.

I’ve done my standard heavy weapons cannon section (numbered 241 & 242) and one of the heavy weapons company vehicles (numbered 251). Here  are 241 & 242:

Now all three: 

and here’s a view from above: .

If I was to go completely silly, I have five more to go. Only if I can get them on a big discount or at a swap & sell…

Now, some extra resources I found online for this project were:

1. colour and b&w photos by The 9th Reenactment Society of their own ‘Stummel’,
2. a walkaround with colour photographs of the 251/9 museum piece from the Deutsches Panzermuseum in  Munster on a site called “The Panzer Tank Walkaround or Panzer Photo Gallery” (there are other Panzers there to look at, too!); and lastly
3. the same as #2. immediately above but taken by a different photographer. Also with more photos.

I really like the green cammo scheme on the Munster 251/9…I might try to use it on the Panthers when they are ready.

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Through the superior firepower (well, superior CNC & milling tools of a colleague) I have been able to get an identical replacement part for the MAC Distribution Horch 108 (Kfz. 70) & 20mm Flak 30 that I shelved back in the first half of the year due to losing a critical piece of the gun bed. I have nearly finished assembly and will do a similar camouflage scheme but with Dark Angels Green instead of Goblin Green.

I figured with all these fumes from assembling 7 Panthers, what harm was one more kit going to do?

It’s not been easy to assemble, either (just like the first time). I’m not looking forward to working on the four MAC Horch 108 passenger cars I’ve got!

Fourth & final game for 2009

A medium-sized township somewhere on the Eastern Front…the Eastern Front in Spring 1945, that is. Two reconnaissance forces clash somewhere in or near Germany.

There was a moderate south-easterly wind blowing.

We decided to play lengthways for this game, as our AFVs could all move at very good speeds and Peter wanted me to see just how that translated onto the table.

I had a company comprised of many different AFVs – 234/2 Pumas, a 234/3 Stummel, 222s and Lynxs. Peter’s Soviet force had a high percentage of Lend-Lease vehicles – M3A1s, M3 half-tracks as well as T-70s.

FIRST TURN:

Both sides moved. My 234/2 Pumas moved at 1/2 their maximum permitted speed, so they could shoot at the T-70s they saw on the main road on the other side of town.

The Pumas hit, but at that range their shells could never penetrate, so the shells bounced off.

SECOND TURN:

More movement. The T-70’s guns can’t reach my Pumas, so my Pumas take advantage of the situation, opening fire and causing one T-70 to be Tracked.

THIRD TURN:

Now AFVs from both sides were racing across the table top.

Peter was right – these recon AFVs really could fly, and having the roads helped this aspect of the game too.

The T-70s are now in range and fire a salvo at the opposing 234/2s but with no success. The 234/2s return fire, getting a Stun result on one of T-70s and  immobilising the other.

FOURTH TURN:

With AFVs sited by both forces, I needed all my 6 ‘pips’ to split my forces up. All jockeyed for cover or to present their heavily-armoured fronts to their opponents.

Down in the south-east of the town, my Lynxs came under solid fire from the Lend-Lease M3A1s, causing one Lynx crew to panic and bail out.

To the north, the 234/2 Pumas both immobilise the already immobilised T-70 and destroy its gun too – Peter rules that it is effectively destroyed as it can do nothing else.

FIFTH TURN:

I order all my German forces to slow right down. Firing at half speed affects their aim (not surprisingly) so now they are to only move 5cm each or less. My rolling for shooting goes downhill though – I roll far too high all of a sudden so my strategy is for naught.

The Russian infantry whom had been tank-riding and dismounted back in Turn Two, hurl Molotov cocktails from their concealed positions in the railway station at the Pumas. Peter rolls the top result possible – Puma #2 is destroyed!

I make a Morale Check for the whole Company…a Shaken result. Not so good.

SIXTH TURN:

My toughest platoon on the table – my 234/2 Pumas – must Withdraw. ‘Withdraw’ means reverse 5cm but can still Shoot…I just cannot go forward under any circumstances.

This turn there was much death. Peter’s  BA-10 platoon are all effectively Tracked and so they Bail Out. My Puma platoon leader is killed. 

I roll an 8 for my Morale Check. With adjustments, the final result is 0 – my remaining Puma must Retreat – but since enemy forces are so close, it’s forced to Surrender to those nearby enemy forces.

At this stage, I declared the Germans had lost. The Russians were bloodied – the most bloodied this year – but I didn’t have enough remaining firepower to break them.

An interesting game – assembling, painting and getting a whole 6 vehicle 234/2 Puma platoon reay for a re-match is an appealing way to spend the upcoming Christmas break.

Hasegawa Pumas ready for recon

The first two of what will end up being a platoon of six Pumas are done. I even numbered them ‘1″ and “2″:

As you can see, I went for both a dust coat but also a bit of dirty water and some mud splashed around on them. #2 has some rather unusual stowage on its rear deck – a case of 120mm mortar shells plus two boxes of  81mm mortar shells (left over from my Pegasus Hobbies mortars). I chose a while ago to give my AFVs plenty of interesting and unusual stowage courtesy of Scott Nicholas, whose own collection of 1/72 & 1/76 WWII Germans for Panzerfaust: Armoured Fist set extremely high standards for me in terms of painting, detail and stowage.

Now here they are together:

Do please note the rear jerrycans with the white painted crosses on them – I felt that if these guys were doing deep recon, they may well want to take plenty of drinking water with them.

I’ve really enjoyed putting these Hasegawa kits together. Yes, they involve lots of parts and lots of stages but the final product is trouble-free and looks very accurate. Even the wheels, which I thought I might do incorrectly, came out perfectly. I know some people don’t like the tyres on these kits, but as a wagamer I’m not fussed by them.  Looking at those photos from Sd Kfz 234/2 by Francisco Javier Cabeza & Carlos Martín and then comparing them to Hasegawa – certainly, they don’t have the newest and deepest tread on them, but why should they? Why not have them well-worn?

I’m putting the finishing touches to a crewman for their 234/3 kit which should be finished by next weekend. It’s taken more time because of the detail for the crewman and the fiddliness of the gun – but it too has turned out well. It’ll get more paint and extras than these Pumas – you’ll have to wait to see exactly what more and what extra!

(No) final decision about German WWII star/umbrella aerials…

After working through information sources like the Bundesarchiv, “German armoured cars of World War Two”, some Squadron/Signal publications as well as search engines like Google and Duck Duck Go, I decided I needed to see what the definitive text “Encyclopaedia of German Tanks of World War Two” (Peter Chamberlain & Hilary Doyle with technical editor Thomas Jentz, 1999, Cassell:  London) could tell me about star/umbrella (some were called ‘crow’s foot’) aerials (as I knew some of the pictures included vehicles with these types of aerial).

The Panzerbefehlswagen mit 5cm KwK39 L/60 entry showed two different vehicles that both had an aerial with 4 clearly identifable prongs. The prongs all began where the main aerial ended and radiated out at a 135 degree angle. This is probably a ‘crow’s foot’ aerial.

The Artillerie-Panzerbeobachtungswagen (Panzerkampfwagen III) (Sd Kfz 143) had an identical aerial, clearly painted dunkelgelb.

The Sturmpanzer IV (Sd Kfz 166) had a very different arrangement. It had quite a tall aerial with at least three prongs. The aerial extended upwards quite a way beyond the short prongs…in fact, the prongs are probably about 1/3 of the way from the top of the aerial, and are probably only about 1/6 of the length of the main aerial.

Two different Panzerbefehlswagen mit 7.5cm KwK42 L/70 (Panther) vehicles has two diferent star aerials.  One was an aerial with 6 clearly identifable prongs. The prongs all began where the main aerial ended and radiated out at a 135 degree angle – a variation on the ‘crow’s foot’ aerial. The other was a tall aerial with 6 prongs, the prongs about 1/3 of the way from the top of the aerial, like that for the Sturmpanzer IV (Sd Kfz 166).

When I reached the section on semi-tracked vehicles, the types of star aerial I had seen most of prior to this research began to crop up. The Sd Kfz 250/3 without frame aerial had a star aerial with 6 prongs, the prongs beginning at the end of the main aerial. The Sd Kfz 250/5 leichte Beobachtungspanzerwagen had the same.

Armoured Cars – the S Pz Sp Wg (Fu) (Sd Kfz 232) 8-Rad had the same as the Sd Kfz 250s mentioned above.

The Panzerfunkwagen (Sd Kfz 263) 8-Rad had an aerial with 5 very long prongs radiating from the main aerial, but the main aerial continued upwards after the prongs for another foot, then had a thin vertical prong off it’s top. This seems to be the same as that star aerial photo I found in the Bundesarchiv and which I linked to in an earlier post.  “Encyclopaedia of German Tanks of World War Two” suggests that that particular vehicle may in fact be a Sd Kfz 247 Ausf B, by the way.

The photos in “Encyclopaedia of German Tanks of World War Two” are sometimes  more illustrative than those in “German armoured cars of World War Two”, as they are published showing the vehicle at a further distance from the camera – so you can see the whole aerial. This is certainly true of the photos of the Sd Kfz 234/2 Puma – you can see a 4-prong ‘crow’s foot’ aerial in the former text, whereas you have no idea it’s a star aerial at all in the latter.

A learned friend tells me that it’s extremely likely prongs could be folded out (as seen in the photos)  or folded back against the main aerial if circumstances required. Some prongs may even have ben able to be folded out to horizontal.

It’s best for me to conclude that there were a number of types of star aerials in use, with different main aerial lengths, different numbers of prongs and different prong lengths. Not all prongs were fixed, either. As long as you are consistent by giving all identical vehicles identical types of star aerials, that should satisfy most serious WWII buffs. I’ll be sure to do this with all my Pumas and with any other vehicles I decide  (or assembly instructions insist on or the texts indicate) will have star aerials.

Star/umbrella aerials for WWII German AFVs – more about how I did mine

I used Brass Wire that I bought from a model train hobby shop (which is also where I get a lot of my terrain materials, like Woodland Scenics products).  The main aerial is made from 0.033″ diameter wire, with the prongs coming off it made from 0.022″ diameter.

Now, as you saw from my August 23 blog post, “ICM’s Sd.Kfz. 222, cars, bikes and aerials!“, the finished star aerials look a little bit thick and chunky. To do a new set of vehicles (since I’ll do any more 234/2s with the same wire for the sake of uniformity) I’ll be using thinner diameter brass wire – probably the 0.022″ for the main aerial and then the next thinnest type that I can purchase from the model train shop for the prongs. I’d probably also use a less viscous bottle of Flash Cyanoacrylate, so that I don’t have to trim away any excess dried glue. Still, these were the only materials I had on hand or could purchase – so, I’m fine with what I’ve done so far and learnt from the process. Next time, I’ll try to order some materials in advance and not rush things.

I’d done some research to try to determine how many prongs these aerials had – the historical photos I had access to in various books showed vehicles with 6 prongs, vehicles with 5 prongs and vehicles with 5 main prongs plus one small horizontal prong. Hasegawa’s instructions for the kit seem to advocate a 4 prong aerial. Since I rediscovered the online Bundesarchiv earlier in the month, I spent some time ploughing through that, doing very general/broad searches like ‘ostfront 1941′, ‘ostfront 1942′ etc.

Here is one illustrative result: GrossDeutschland on the march.  You can see that, unlike Hasegawa’s suggestion that the main aerial stopped at the prongs, that the main aerial did go a little higher or feature a verticle sub-prong after the prongs. I have photos of two different Sd. Kfz. 263s (in Milsom & Chamberlain’s 1974 book ‘German armoured cars of World War Two’) with 5 prong aerials but showing that the main aerial continued after the prongs or had a vertical sub-prong. I’m not sure about how often a horizontal sub-prong just under the bigger prongs was used (you can see what I’m talking about in the Bundesarchiv example above). Looking through images using different search engines, I mostly saw 5-prong versions of what Hasegawa recommend modellers do. I’ve no doubt that there were different types of star/umbrella aerials…I was just hoping to find something more definitive than I did.

Researching for painting: Schwerer Panzerspähwagen Sd.Kfz. 234/2 ‘Puma’

Tankoberg has stopped assembling and is now just painting. The Pumas presented an interesting question – should I paint the sets of axles in dunkelgelb or just with bare metal?

I set out using Google and also a new search engine, Duck Duck Go, to see what I could find. Certainly, searching images turned up lots of beautifully painted model kits in a number of scales, but none clearly showed axles. Even walk-around photos of museum vehicles didn’t oblige! While diligently going through the first 20 pages of results for a search, I found step-by-step photos of a model kit WIP (work in progress) in 1:6 scale.  Egonzinc’s Sdkfz. 234/2 “Puma” *Building the Model” was very informative and I, like those who have already commented on that discussion board, also wish to congratulate him heartily for such fantastic work.

I elected to follow his example and paint my kits’ axles (and also the undercarriage) dunkelgelb, not base metal, just as Egonzinc had done.

Next day, still testing out Duck Duck Go, I did some more general searches about painting Sd.Kfz. 234/2s (or any of the 234 family, since I have a 234/3 and will be buying some 234/1s eventually). As with the searches discussed above, I found a lot of photos and text about how modellers were painting or had painted them – but that wasn’t what I wanted. I’d searched my historical books and had seen photos of actual combat vehicles in plain dunkelgelb, two-tone camouflage and also three-tone camouflage. The Hasegawa kit assembly instruction sheet and box that the kit came in has a painting guide for three-tone camouflage, for a vehicle in action. So, the paint scheme is dark yellow, red brown and olive green in a mottled pattern – and this vehicle is on the Western Front, in Normandy. I’m interested in Eastern Front!

More searches unsued. “German  armoured cars of World War Two” (Milsom & Chamberlain 1974, Arms and armour Press, London) was clearly showing me vehicles with different paint and camouflage schemes! So did Bundesarchiv. So did historical black and white photos from other websites.

An examination of one result hit the jackpot – an English translation of the web page Sd Kfz 234/2 by Francisco Javier Cabeza & Carlos Martín. It had everything I wanted – authoritative text and historical photographs in colour. The Combat Use section is most helpful. Paint schemes and camouflage schemes are discussed as thoroughly as sources allow, as well as markings and divisional insignia. Francisco and Carlos have referred to some texts I own and also some I don’t, but I consider what is on their web site to be accurate and their sources to be high quality – therefore I’m acting on the  information they present.

I noted that the SS Panzer Division used three-tone cammo’d Pumas (but then, SS units usually got the best quality equipment). I decided that since mine were to be Eastern Front, I’d leave them as dunkelgelb but with proper markings. I’ve got some Hetzer tank-hunters who will get a heavy three-tone camouflage scheme and I’m going to do my Panthers in three-tone camouflage too.

Painting has been done with more vigour since this historical research and very fortunate pair of discoveries! Research is a wonderful thing.

ICM’s Sd.Kfz. 222, cars, bikes and aerials!

So far, ICM 1:72 kit #72411 has been very straightforward to assemble. Part fit has been very good. There’s been a little bit of flash on the mudguards but otherwise it’s needed nothing but glue and cleaning up where I’ve cut each piece from it’s sprue. Assembly instructions are pretty clear – there’s one stage where one action is meant to be done three more times…but you get the drift from the pictures.

Also rolling along the Tankoberg assembly lines have been a Hasegawa Kubelwagen and BMW motorbike w/ sidecar – kit #31112 which I picked up last weekend at an IPMS Swap & Sell.

I’ve been experimenting with something else, too. After researching and consulting a number of sources online and in person, I decided to go ahead and try to make star/umbrella aerials for my Pumas, as I am well aware that they were used on these vehicles. Consulting photos in books and from the Bundesarchiv (the picture archives of the Federal Archives of Germany) left me a little unsure of how many prongs such an aerial should have…some vehicles had 6 prongs, some had 5. I decided to go with 5 for my Pumas after seeing a 251 with a 5-prong aerial and two different Sd. Kfz 263s with 5-prong aerials.

They aren’t so hard to make. Here are the steps I took:

One: Collect these materials – brass wire of two different thicknesses; some superglue or, in my case, Flash Cyanoacrylate (dangerous stuff but powerful); needlenose piers; wire cutters and lastly clamps or a modeller’s mate like this one to hold things for you..

Two: shape the thinner brass wire into a triangular shape. . Also cut yourself a reasonable length of the thicker brass wire – in my case, about 5 – 6 inches.

Three: bend the two ends so that they run parallel and can touch each other flatly. Lock the thick brass wire into one clamp of the modeller’s mate and lock the thin brass triangular bit into the other clamp – bring the flat ends of the triangular wire so that they touch flatly along the thick wire and superglue them into place: . Let everything dry.

Four: repeat Two and Three with another triangle, except it needs to be at an angle of about 75 degrees to the first triangle. You’ll need to cut off one side of the glued-on triangle to permit this. When all is dry, cut off the side of the second triangle – now you should have 4 prongs radiating off from the thick brass wire.

Five: make the last prong and glue it on to make 5 prongs – hopefully the two triangles you glued on and cut away result in 5 fairly evenly-spaced prongs.

Six: when everything’s dry, take out of the clamp and use a scalpel to cut away any excess lumps of glue.

Seven: use the wire cutters to cut the prongs to a suitable anduniform length: .

Eight: stickytape the aerial to something and undercoat it:

Nine: glue into place on the vehicle and paint when the glue’s dry. It’s that easy!

Something old, something new?

NEWSFLASH!

Italeri are re-releasing the old ESCI Pz.Kpfw II F & Wespe kits!  I’d been slowly accumulating these by purchasing them at Swap & Sells for the princely sum of $5 AUD per box. I have 3 already, now I won’t have to wait too long to have a platoon of 5 ready.

While I’m mentioning the Panzer II, ACE from the Ukraine have their Pz.Kpfw II C ready – have a gander here. It’s available from some vendors.

~~~

I’m working on the recon game AFVs. Two Pumas are being painted while a number of other vehicles are now being assembled in TankoBerg.

Looking forward to this kit: ICM #72411; Sd.Kfz. 222 Leichter Panzerspähwagen

It was either tonight or tomorrow night for another blog post – tonight won the die roll.

With the Sd.Kfz. 250/3 nearly done and just waiting to get some materials to make star/umbrella aerials for the Sd.Kfz. 234/2 Pumas, I feel I can begin to assemble ICM’s kit #72411. The drive train, axles and such are detailed but mostly pre-assembled!

Have a look at the relevant  sprue:  and the assembly instructions:

This recon AFV clash game is looking good!

Schwerer Panzerspähwagen – Sd.Kfz. 234/2 “Puma” – by Hasegawa

OK, so I’ve broken my personal rules and ended up having too many kits on the go at the same time in TankoBerg.  I’ll blame Peter for this…we cooked up the idea to have a recon AFV game next time, and I’m sadly lacking in recon units. Earlier this Winter I had washed and undercoated the sprues of two Hasegawa Pumas – they have been sitting on a box lid since then and I decided to build them up, since Peter can loan me two more to make a platoon of 4.

The kit in question is the Hasegawa 1/72 #31152.  Doug Chaltry, writing for On the Way!, has already provided a comprehensive discussion of this kit, so I’m only going to pass some comments as a wargamer-modeller rather than master modeller.

Those comments:

• although appearing to be challenging and complicated due to the high number of sprues and parts on the sprues, the instructions are clear and the stages you assemble things in are relevant. One instruction has been mis-translated – what has been provided in English is “After making it dry enough, it advances to the following distance”. I asked a Japanese colleague to provide a second opinion (second translation) – she said that what it means is  “Once all the glueing you’ve done at this stage is dry, then you can proceed to the next stage”. Sound advice, I found.
• you can assemble some stages simultaneously. I was assembling the turret while glueing on the fiddly details to the vehicle body (spare wheel, wheel jack, tarpaulins etc.).
• a nice-looking commander figure is provided. I’m going to keep them and use them with other kits where I know I’m not going to get a commander figure.
• no problem with parts fitting, except for one mudguard (and only on one kit).
• you’ll be left with some useful spares that could be used with other kits.

I finished all glueing today. Now, I have to be disciplined and finish off everything else that is still sitting around that was started prior to them (like that 250/3) and then I’ll tell you about painting them.