Basically the roof goes on the model and G85 a piece of superstructure armor above the main gun is added. Obviously for painting area around the gun cradle, I’m not cementing the roof in place at this time.
Model is ready to wash build grime off of and after drying, start painting. Unfortunately, that will have to wait until ~April. While I do have a paint booth, unfortunately the new hobby room windows are the wide swing side open type rather than up and down. Opening a window quickly turns the room into a refrigerator unsatisfactory for painting.
Reflections, I mostly 98% followed the instructions. That worked but I had a couple of fit issues due to my own carelessness. With that in mind, building another RFM Pz III or Stug III, I absolutely wouldn’t do that again. I’d make sure all major subassemblies went together first before adding detail parts.
RFM #5069 Stug III G early
Quality of molding, detail, engineering, instructions, plastic, options, value are all excellent. The non-interior kit is a little more complex than strictly necessary due to sharing parts with the interior kit.
You could get the miniart kit and use it to hone your soft plastic and excessive part count builds.
Or get the Dragon-
with this kits fenders and exposed drivers scopes-
I’ll wait for RFM to release one vs buying a Dragon. Currently 5+ hours into cleaning up Dragon’s Pz III Ausf N’s wheels, return rollers, sprockets & idlers. Don’t want to travel that road again for a Dragon Stug III.
As for Mini-Art, i bought a couple kits - took a close look at them and gave them away to get rid of…to time intensive.
Found a long lost sheet of aftermarket decals, I’d picked up for ~$2.25 on 75% off clearance at a Hobby Town. I think these decals with winter white wash will be the recipe for this Stug III G.
I believe Sturmbannführer Krag was in the 2nd SS Panzer Division and named his Stug III Gotz von Berlichingen.
At first I thought this was a 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Götz von Berlichingen vehicle and was looking forward to using an insignia badge for the division on the base. Last night’s research suggested this wasn’t the case.
My Stug III knowledge is very thin. I believe his vehicle probably had a star antenna based on his rank. Platoon commanders had dual antenna and company commander would have a star antenna based on what DByrden shared early in the thread. Krag commanded a Stug battalion in August 1943 and latter a recon battalion. I read some tool placement on Krag’s Stug III was atypical for an ausf G.
My “artist licensed” version of Krag’s ride may just have dual antennas and standard placement tools. Given Krag joined the SS in 1935, I’m probably not going to dig too deep on the specifics. He won the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. I don’t believe he was charged with any war related crimes as he was released in 1948.
You are right. He went on to command the Aufklarungsabteilung 2 as per the bio you attached. I wasn’t concentrating or I would have remembered he spent his entire SS career with “Das Reich” and its previous incantations. But lots of the well known members of the early SS units went onto command units in other, later formations like “HJ”, where all the main unit commanders including the GOC came from “LAH”. Naming vehicles after German heroes can be misleading. There is a photo of a Stug labelled “Florian Geyer”, but whether it belongs to 8 SS Kavallerie Division or not is open to question. Given the “Gotz” naming of Krag’s Stug, it’s likely it belongs to 2 SS StugAbteilung.
Real life interfered today, so only the base coat of Mr Surfacer went down on the Stug III G today.
On the bright side the Chicken Pie build was completed successfully. Wasn’t a scratch build, aftermarket or rather market rotisserie chicken & pie crust was used.
