Hello all!
I was able to make some progress on figures and the vehicle this weekend.
Making custom figures is arduous model work. It requires a tremendous amount of putty sculpting, test fitting, sanding, more sanding and lots of CA that can create quite a mess if one isn’t careful
One product I’m now using that has escaped me for the last 3 decades is Mr Surfacer 5000. I absolutely love this stuff. It’s like sprueglue but much better than the stuff I make.
I’m not sure why, but I hadn’t checked it out. I guess I thought it was a primer meant to be applied via airbrush.
Mr. Surfacer 5000 is really going to cut down on the amount of careful putty filling and sanding I’ll have to do.
I’ve continued work on 2 grenadiers wearing sumpfmuster 43 smocks firing Walther Gewehr 41’s. Based on the famous photos of Kampfgruppe Von Luck and my favorite Ron Volstad artwork.
First up is the grenadiers: Using Ron Volstad’s artwork and photographs as inspiration, I kind of ran with those as inspiration.
Again, figure painting is always my biggest failing. It has derailed both my SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 25 and 24th Panzer Division Stalingrad Factory dioramas. I need more practice and would rather shelve a project rather than put all the work into the figures and fumble the painting.
Here is the progress:
Next up is the Somua.
Man, is this thing a challenge. Not only are there very few resources available on this thing, KM’s offering continues to present scale and structing issues.
The interior is sparce and only has a floor plate and 2 electrical junction boxes, presumably for a radio.
Hans Hoeller stated many times in his book that the vehicles did not have a radio. This was an issue because it was very difficult for his recon teams to communicate back to Kompanie HQ and signals to other teamates and vehicles had to be done by either hand or flares.
I removed the electrical boxes on KM’s interior with a dremel.
I then began to think about the interior, for which very few photo’s exist.
I was able to find a few images that have been greatly helpful.
You can see here that in this photo and these video stills, there are benches mounted in the interior on what appear to be metal stowage boxes. They have a padded seat cusion much like the Sdkfz 250 Neu. In fact, many of the interior elements seem to be form the 250 or very similar. Clasps, mounting brackets, cleats and cusions. I will be adding some personal equipment mounts for gas masks, MG, SMG, flare gun and a box for flare rounds.
This is not meant to disparage or in any way rip on Steve Zaloga’s build on missing lynx seen here. Brach Model resin kit BM 073 1/35 Selbstfahrlafette fur 7.5cm PaK40 auf Somua MCG S307(f) by Steve Zaloga.
He did a masterful job of scratch building and modifying Brach’s resin offering and I have nothing but praise for he and his build.
I just have to preface with this to explain why my build will look quite different as far as the interior goes. I just haven’t been able to find enough reference material and can only scratch build and mod off of what I have and what Hans Hoeller has written in his book.
Here is some reference pics and the build up of the protype/test fits of the interior:
Not knowing what size of plastic card I needed, I used Evergreens assortment pack “Odds and Ends” which I didn’t know existed. I have been searching for a product like this for years! No more guessing with $8-$15 sheets that don’t work!
I started with this seat but it proved to be too narrow when I test fitted it, so restarted with wider dimensions.
Test fitting of the new benches and outline of the floor mounted ammo rack.
I first had to remove the electrical junction boxes which I don’t think were in the real vehicle like this.
Then test fitting can begin. You can clearly see that my build will not have rear doors and all the ammo will be stored on the floor in a custom ammo rack built in Becker’s shop.
Multiple photos also show wooden ammo boxes layed on top of the bench seats, but I’m pretty sure this is for the practice rounds used in the training for which those photos capture. Perhaps some did have this in combat, but I’m more likely to include a few single canister containers than the wooden crate box.
I feel this is pretty well in line with how the vehicle actually was made and looked, as well as working correctly in scale and what will work with my figures.
I have begun building up figures for the crew compartment.
I have used Hans Hoeller’s description of his gear and men to do so.
It’s very important to remember; These are not traditional panzerjeager or stug men. These vehicles were not crewed by those who had extensive training as drivers, gunners and self propelled gun operators from the beginning of their service. Some may have had attended driver’s school, but from what I’ve read, the majority were veteran grenadiers from North Africa, the Eastern Front, or where fresh recruits.
These were panzergrenadiers through and through and that’s how I’m building them.
The Panzergrenadier Regiments of the 21st Pz Div were unique in that when they were built back up in 43, the battalions had a “Heavy” Kompanie buit instead of mortars, heavy machine gun laffettes and infantry guns, they had these. Self Propelled Pak 40’s, 8cm mortars and 2cm flaks.
I kept this in miuned when designing the “crew”.
You can see I’ve tried to build the interior mockup after this photo which is probably the best out there.
I really cant tell what’s going on with the benches above. They almost look similar to SDkfz 251 wooden bench boxes with something like the 250’s seat cushion. I don’t know.
There’s a Jerry can in front of the right bench. This is because there’s one in the 1943 photo (likely filled with water by 21st veterans of North Africa). I secured to the floor via putty to act as a reference point of something standard and easily discernable.
You can also see that Becker secured the Pak 40 to the vehicle by way of it’s own carriage mount. This is also different from KM’s design and others online that suggested the Pak 40 was mounted via a robust pedestal mount. From what I’ve seen, it is not. Just the carriage base mount secured in the superstructure like the Marder I.
It’s going to require an additional pak 40 kit to cannibalize for these elements.I think I’ll go with Border’s new offering.
You can clearly see the ammo rack isn’t like a Marder III and mounted against the superstructure’s wall. They’re stowed in a custom rack on the floor.
The rack stores 8 rounds horizontally with 2 layers totally 16 rounds, from what we can see.
The mockup will allow me to analyze the scale and modify the benches to make an accurate ammo rack.
As I’ve stated before, the KM model is almost certainly too large. This has required me to custom sculpt my figures to be larger than they otherwise would be.
The build moves along.
I have ordered Panzer Art’s fabulous pak 40 barrel and breach and will be buying either a DAS WERK or Dragon Pak 40 for the gun carriage mount, gun cradle and details. This is proving to be a very expensive build.
BONUS:
The figures I made for the crew are very easy to make and while I’ve specifically built them for the Panzerjeager-Fahrzeuge Somua MCG 7.5cm Pak 40, they also fit perfectly in the Marder I auf Lorraine.
If anyone is looking for a good Summer '44 through 1945 combat crew. It only requires 1 Dragon figure set and very little putty and sanding.
Here’s how they fit in the Marder I:
There’s very little to work with as far as references, so it’s just a ‘little-by-little’ trial and error process.
