Stug questions

Armor/AFV WWII Axis
1

In this image, I saw some things I don’t remember seeing on Stugs.

image

  1. The shield positioned to protect the loader when using the MG or otherwise exposed.
  2. Are those just wavy lines or actual Zimmerit on the skirts?
  3. What looks like a wire between shield mounting points.

Thanks for any feedback.

2
  1. Looks field expedient, but that would stand to reason.
  2. Zimmerit on Schurzen was done, so most likely yes.
  3. Possibly to help retain them and keep them from coming off when being struck by obstacles?
    Or to facilitate adding branches for cammo.
1 Like
3

2 Some stugIII received “Waffle” Zimmerit. It looks like that.
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4

Re: 3 I’ve seen a fair few pics of StuGs and Panzer IVs with some kind of wire between the posts that stick through the skirts.

Re: 2 I think it is likely zimmerit - note the pattern on the front skirt is different than on the other three segments.

5

Nrowsing thru lots of Stug pictures myself as I have a Stug III Ausf B underway. Fairly common to find side skirts w zimmerit, or different camo patterns in fact cause they were easy to lose in the field and they would just liberate a missing skirt where they could find them.

The wire is for adding foliage, in fact on my B I’ve add extra tracks to the right sidde of the turret/casemate and thru those tracks I’ve crisscrossed wire as I’ve seen to. Mine won’t have skirts but I may string some more as it was a common field mod, just as the other guys have noted.

I built Tamiya’s Stug IV as my first kit back in the hobby a few years ago. I cut the side skirts apart, damaged them, painted a few differently and added some rough zimmerit w putty to one just to break up the monotony, I liked the result.

6

Thanks for all the replies. I have a MiniArt kit, no interior, waiting to be built, but it’s 2/1943 so no Zimmerit. Not that this rules out picking up a later Stug III kit that would need Zimmerit.

7

Regarding Stug III and Zimmerit this video is very interesting. Weald Foundation - Making and Applying Zimmerit to The Original [Correct] Formula

One gets to see the process of making and application.