StuG IIIB by Trumpeter

I went to this year’s IPMS Swap and Sell last sunday, at a new venue at Ashburton Scout Hall. I was very happy to find (and purchase!) a Trumpeter StuG IIIB:

. I already have assembled and painted the Ausf. C/D version that Trumpeter make, and have a second one waiting it’s turn. They are nice little kits, pretty well detailed but not too difficult to assemble (and they paint up splendidly) – here, have a look inside the B’s box: . The commander’s hatch on this kit is clsoed, unlike the C/D. That may or may not be of interest to you, as skilled modellers can always kitbash to get what they want.

For now, this is another kit to add to the stash. Three early war StuG III’s, to go with my Panzer III’s. I’m slowly expaning across the entire 4 year duration of the Eastern Front!

 

Another StuG? Yep, a StuG III C/D off the Tankoberg production line plus a Pegasus Hobbies Russian log building…

Many of the “other” things I’ve been working on the side for some time are now being completed. The Trumpeter StuG III C/D is a quite detailed yet simple kit to assemble. I was getting along with it so quickly that I stopped myself occasionally to make sure I wasn’t missing steps or pieces! The only real problem I had with it was the rubber tracks. They are one piece and have holes on one end and pins on the other, wich you press together and glue. The pins on my kit were perhaps two milimetres long and far too thin…they certainly weren’t going to stay in place under their own power while waiting for the glue to harden. I snipped them off, used cyanoacrylate and clothes pegs with bits of broken chopstick to get the tracks into position and stay in place.

I improvised a gun aiming telescope sticking out of the molded-open roof hatch by using a cut-off piece from a Hasegawa kit glued onto some leftover sprue. From more than a couple of feet distance it looks great.

It then received a Dunkelgrau paint job and rather than just Operation Barbarossa dust drybrushing, it got dust and then ink and paint to represent splashed-up puddles and the Autumn mud. Here it is:

I also had three other things on the go on the side:

You’ve seen the Horch resin kits before…I did four of them previously…I decided a couple of months back to do the remaining two on the side while waiting for all those StuG Gs to harden or dry. I tried a slightly different way of painting the reflection on the windscreen with these two. I like it better than what I did previously, but it’s still got a long way to go yet.

The log building is from Pegasus Hobbies, but I’m not sure which box or production/kit number it is, because I got it loose in an eBay job lot. It’s not the “Russian Farm Houses” (#7702) or “Russian Log House – Two Story (Large Karilian region izba)” because I’ve already got those. If you know, could you please let me know? They are great to paint as they have good, clean, well-detailed detail so you can really bring out highlights and shades.

I played a game of Panzerfaust: Armoured Fist on friday with Peter, but it wasn’t an Ostfront game. Photos but minimal report to come (as it wasn’t Ostfront).

More to do…

With the annual IPMS Model Expo over, I have a few more kits to work on (some day). The swap-n-sell yesterday was not as productive (in terms of kits purchased) as I’d dreamed, but was not disappointing either.

I was able to add the following to my stash:

2 Königstigers (Royal or King Tigers) by Revell AG;

1 Stug III C/D version by Trumpeter;

1 Sd.Kfz. 234/2 “Puma” by Hasegawa and lastly,

1 Sd.Kfz. 234/3 by Hasegawa.

I’m one Königstiger from a platoon of 4 and one Puma from a full group (can’t remember how many I need right now).

4 of the kits were $10 AUD each and the fifth one only $5. While not all were still in their sealed plastic bags, each was in its box with complete sprues, instructions and decals.

I’m pumped about being close to a platoon of Königstigers…I may even splurge and buy one at normal price so we can heavy some real “heavy metal action” in a 1945 scenario!