Bandai 1/48th Jagdpanther G2

 Well, firstly all I can do is apologise......no posts since September last year! What on earth have I been playing at. Well my only excuse is real world got in the way.....

....first I had to have a hip replacement followed closely by another operation to repair a hernia! Then I have been extremely busy with work as I'm retiring in the summer and there's lots to do in preparation for that. However, I managed to squeeze in an AFV build and here's the story behind it.

Due to display space constraints, I have become a big fan of 1/48^th scale (and 1/56^th) models. I have also become fond of building models with some internal detail on show.

Knowing this, a friend from tank club Mike Johns, very generously gave me an old Bandai kit of the late war Jagdpanther from his stash.

This kit dates back to the 1970’s and in it’s day was state of the art.

The particular kit he gave me looks to have been boxed later (maybe 1980’s) and contained two sets of decals – one old and yellowed with Japanese descriptions, the other new and bright and labelled “printed in Britain”.

The kit was on 5 clearly labelled sprues, moulded in sand yellow polystyrene and suffered from extensive flash. This meant that throughout the entire build there was a lot of cleaning up to be done!

There was (as ever) a basic interior included but be aware that this is somewhat stylised and missing many important details.

All the same I decided to build this model so you could see much of this detail. Initially I’d thought of the same approach I’d given the Hetzer, however, cutting the sides out would mean that the nicely moulded pioneer tools and tow cable would have to be left off. I therefore settled on removing the fighting compartment roof which I did (carefully!) with a Dremel rotary saw.

The first assemblies were for the transmission and Maybach engine. Both make up into reasonable representations of the real thing – though research has shown me that the vehicle is steered with tiller levers not a steering wheel (like the Tiger 1) as represented on the model.

There are no fuel tanks or radiators included, and as I wasn’t planning to scratch build any, I decided I would simply expose the engine by leaving the engine hatch open on the finished model.

The individual road wheels took a long time to clean up – removing flash and mould lines and where then ‘blutac’d’ to a piece of wood, with the part number noted, before spraying them in dark grey, before over spraying using a 3D printed mask in Vallejo Midstone.

The lower hull comes with lots of nice torsion bar detail moulded in which sadly, will be completely hidden when the fighting compartment floor is installed.

The axles are all moulded in place and present good, strong mounts for the wheels which is good when you come to attaching the vinyl band tracks.

The rear hull detail incorporates the jack and the two late war exhaust stacks that were designed to cut down the flame/glow at night.

The upper hull is moulded in one piece and is a good fit to the lower hull. As there is nothing beneath the various cooling grills, I sealed them off with some pieces of plastic sheet so I could paint the recesses black to appear in shadow.

The 88mm gun breech, like many of the kit parts, lacks location pins/holes and has to be aligned carefully when gluing. Both this and the gun barrel matched up really well and sanded smooth after gluing, so you’d never know they were made from two parts.

After adding the wheels, idlers and drive sprockets and leaving them to dry overnight, I attached the Vinyl tracks. I decided to do this early on as they were going to be a tight fit and I didn’t want to damage the interior while fighting to get them on!

I joined them in the traditional way using my USB chargeable soldering iron (excellent for this purpose!!) and then sprayed them earth brown. Once fitted they were tight and didn’t display that characteristic Panther sag. To replicate this, I drilled the hull each side and superglued a short length of paperclip to hold the track down. This will be nigh on invisible one the side skirts are in place and the model weathered.

I then started on the interior assembly. Firstly, there was the transmission and drive shaft to install together with the driver’s and radio operator’s seats.

Then I added the firewall and the fighting compartment floor. This hid all that lovely torsion bar and drive shaft detail.

I then fitted the gun breech assembly and crew seats. There are only two crew seats included….the model is missing the gunner’s seat. I scratch built one from scrap plastic and added it to the lefthand side of the gun.

The real vehicle has racking for 88mm rounds filling both sponsons. The Bandai kit provides two racks and some separate rounds. Whilst these aren’t accurate, I decided to go with them as I was planning to put the crew figures inside the vehicle, and I don’t think this inaccuracy will be that obvious in the end.

The interior was painted a mixture of Red Oxide and off-white. At this stage in the War, I believe the interior would have been entirely Red Oxide, but this would have made viewing difficult, so I decided on off-white to help make things easier to see.

Finally, I installed the painted engine in the Red Oxide painted engine bay. I decided that the interior look a little too spartan to be convincing, so I added a couple of storage items to fill the spaces – ammunition boxes, personal gear etc.

The upper hull had all its associated tools etc. added together with the included side plates – some of which I portrayed as missing, hanging off. There was also a separate gun mantlet and MG ball mount to be added.

The kit came with a sprue of crew figures. These are typical of the 1970’s, not particularly accurate, detailed or well-proportioned. I wanted to stay true to my usual “out-of-the-box” approach so was determined to use them.

There were parts to complete 4 standing and one seated figure. I was going to need three seated (Driver, Radio Op. & Gunner) and two standing (Loader & Commander) so was going to have to do some conversion work.

I found two sets of seated legs from my Vietnam Gun Truck model that worked perfectly when attached to the Bandai torsos (although the polystyrene to ABS join was a little problematic). These formed the Radio Op. & Gunner. I was still toying with the idea of the two standing figures being displayed with the separate roof, but in the end I went with the loader stood in the fighting compartment, below where his open hatch would be and the commander in his hatch on the separate roof.

I decided to paint the model exterior as four separate sub-assemblies – Upper Hull, roof, lower hull & Gun + mantlet.

Base coat was airbrushed Vallejo Midstone with lightened modulation in the centres of the panels.

I wanted to have a change from the usual green/red brown sprayed patterns and had seen pictures of the Weald collection’s Jagdpanther painted in a late war scheme of DunkelGelb over painted with red oxide stripes bordered with a light sand. I did my best to replicate this using AK Interactive acrylic paint pens!

These are great for this sort of application and give you control whilst creating the stripes. This would have been a factory applied scheme and the paint would have been brushed on, so I needed neat, clean edges.

When this was dry, I hand painted all the details like the pioneer tools (I painted the two cables separately, still attached to their sprue, and added them at the very end) hull MG, exhaust stacks and the engine deck shadows.

It was now time for the decals. Just a few to give some interest. Balkan crosses on the sides and rear, call sign numbers and Panzer Division symbols. All applied over gloss varnished areas using decal setting solution.

Left overnight to dry thoroughly the model was now ready for weathering. The first stage was to apply a pin wash using Vallejo Dark Earth acrylic wash to all the recesses.

When this was dry, I gave the model a light drybrush with Iraqi Sand before starting to add chipping effects with sponge and brush using Vallejo Black Brown paint.

Once all this was dry it was time for final assembly. The upper hull was carefully teased back into place and attached with Tamiya Extra Thin cement to the lower hull along the glacis plate join and where the two side plates touched the rear plate.

This was left clamped overnight to ensure a strong bond. The last job was to attach the gun barrel and mantlet to the short tube of the breech protruding from the upper hull.

The entire model (and separate roof was now given a sprayed coat of Ultra-Matt varnish to blend everything in together and give a consistent overall finish.

The final weathering consisted of some rust effects on the spare track links and exhausts and applications of earth and graphite powders after the varnish had dried.

I approached the base in a similar way to other models I’ve built. I designed and 3D printed a frame with an armature to take the detached fighting compartment roof. This was assembled and given a coat of gloss black to hide the glue marks.

The base itself was also printed and designed to fit into the frame. By keeping it separate it avoids having to mask the frame when adding the terrain texture. This was an acrylic artist’s textured paste that I bought years ago in the Works. The particles are quite large, so it gives the impression of a churned-up field/road surface. 

This was sprayed brown when dry and then given progressive dry-brushes of sand-coloured paints. Finally, I added some static grass and grass clumps/flowers.

The label was created in Microsoft Publisher, printed out and laminated before attaching to the base with double-sided tape.

The model was secured to the base with a screw from underneath to ensure it survives transportation to shows etc.

After fitting the vehicle, I applied some AK mud mixed with static grass to form track marks and try to simulate the churned-up effect that the AFV would create.

The roof was attached to its little stand with a short piece of double-sided tape, and it was finished.

I’ve taken rather too long to get this done, but I’m really pleased with the end result.😊

 

 

 

 

 

Tamiya 1/35th Panzer 2 Ausf F

After my Vietnam Gun Truck conversion I fancied something a bit more straight forward to follow up, and the 54-year-old Tamiya Panzer 2 I bought for £10 at the IPMS Avon show, fitted the bill perfectly.

Accuracy issues aside, the kit cannot be faulted for value. The model was originally intended to be motorised and the lower hull still comes with the fittings for this. However, the parts were all moulded crisply with no flash whatsoever. The tracks are the old joinable vinyl type but, again are flash free and adequately detailed. An as a bonus you get the old DAK figure set of four advancing infantry to display with the model. What’s not to like?

There is a commander figure included, and whilst not up to aftermarket resin items, he is perfectly usable once the rather prominent mould lines have been removed.

The figures themselves had similar mould lines to remove, a lengthy process t say the least. The detail of the sculpting is not the worse that Tamiya have ever produced, nor is it the worse. Careful assembly together with a little bit of up detailing (weapons slings, gasmask straps and binocular straps) with some masking tape and gap filling with liquid green stuff can make a difference.

I planned to paint these with the new AK Quick Gen speed paints so simply primed them in matt white.

The suspension arms were all moulded onto the lower hull, so whilst there is some accuracy compromise here, it saved a lot of time.

The wheels are all secured using poly caps. I know they aren’t universally popular, but I liked them as it meant all the wheels could be painted and weathered off the vehicle and simply push on when finally assembling.

The turret literally fell together, the only detailing I added was to drill out the barrel ends. I incorporated the turret storage box to give it a different look. My source books stated that these boxes were fitted to some Ausf F vehicles (which this depicts) and I even found one DAK picture to back this up.

The upper hull was equally quick to assemble and as the radio aerial was moulded folded in it’s protective trough, I didn’t feel compelled to add any brush bristles.

When dry assembled it was clear that the engine grills looked through to an open void and there were gaps in the underside of the fenders that might be visible on the completed model. I decided to fill these gaps and cover the undersides of the grills with plasticard. I also cut away the underside of the left rear storage box to separate it from the fender as it was oversimplified in the original moulding.

I was now ready to attach the two hull pieces and needed to apply a little pressure from a clamp while the glue dried.

To help with painting I glued a piece of scrap sprue to the bottom of the hull. This would then be clamped to give me a hand hold.

The wheels were mounted on cotton buds to facilitate painting.

A similar piece of scrap sprue was glued to the inner surface of the turret to help with painting.

Meanwhile, the figures were blocked out using a mixture of speed paints including the new AK DAK Green.

Most DAK AFVs were originally serving in Europe before being shipped to North Africa. They therefore arrived still painted in their Panzer Grey livery. Initially they were camouflaged with an application of wet mud but later painted in a suitable desert sand colour.  Time and hard use led to this finish being chipped and battered revealing the undercoat of Panzer Grey. This was the look I was after, so the first coat of paint was Vallejo Model Air Anthracite Grey.

This was highlighted on the horizontal panels with a slightly lightened mix. And once thoroughly dry (24 hours later) sprayed with a coat of Vallejo Chipping Medium.

Again after 24 hour drying time the topcoat of Vallejo Model Air Desert Sand was sprayed on. Again, this was highlighted with a lightened coat on the horizontal panels. I also attached the decals at this point using Vallejo setting agent.

The rusty exhaust was painted using a mixture of Army Painter Rust wash with Vallejo Red Earth pigment - it gives just the right colour and has a realistic texture too.

My little helper, Molly, keeping an eye on proceedings!

Then once this had dried for an hour or so, the chipping process can take place. I use tap water with a stiff paint brush to start the process and a clean wooden cocktail stick to make the small chips. I find this quite fun and rather relaxing to do, but be careful, it would be all too easy to overdo this! The whole vehicle has this treatment – the hull, turret and wheels – The tyres were painted using a black rubber AK paint pen (awesome piece of kit!!).

I could now finish painting some details like the gun barrels, headlights etc. and start to add some pigmentation. To give the impression of a build up of sand in the crevices and corners of the tank I mixed desert sand pigment with Vallejo Desert Sand wash. I then applied it where I thought it would gather. When dry the pigment is fixed and it looks quite realistic to my eye.

Finally, the model was assembled. The commander figure ended up having his legs removed at the knee and gluing him to a strip of plasticard I glued across the turret base. The tracks were joined in the traditional way using my USB soldering iron and the join was more or less invisible. Tracks don’t rust in the desert the same way they do in Europe, so they were weathered with a mixture of steel and dust effects culminating in a rub of graphite on the raised detail from a soft pencil.

The figures were completed and them plus the tank all received a coat of Ultra Matt varnish.

The base was a simple 3D print affair with a surface created using artist’s acrylic paste covered in various grades of sand. It was painted using cheap craft acrylic paint and dry-brushed with white before adding the models and grass tufts.

The figures are all secured using pins (lengths of paper clip) secured in holes drilled in their feet and then fed through holes drilled in the base, before bending them over and a blob of super-glue. The tank was secured using good old Bostick!

I tried to recreate the original box art for old time’s sake, and I think it looks OK.

A really nice model to build, not too challenging, but fun and a good-looking finished article. Thoroughly recommended.