In which I blog about my miniature wargaming and whatever else takes my interest!

In which I blog about my miniature wargaming and whatever else takes my interest!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Panzer Marsch!

I've had these 15mm tanks almost done for a while now. They sat in a box assembled and primed for a year. Then in between commissions I got them base coated where they sat for another while. Then they got their dunkelgelb on. More waiting in their box. So while getting Ron's 25mm Canadians prepped I decided to finish up the German armour for Kampfgruppe Hotlead (which I blogged about last year).

Although scenarios requiring Tiger tanks have been thin on the ground with my group's emphasis on early to mid-war or the Italian theater. But now that I've been reading about the Normandy campaign and North West Europe... well it'd be a shame not to have a few, wouldn't it?

Since this posting has become rather picture heavy, I've made all the thumb-nails smaller to speed page loading.

First up, some PzIIIMs. Nice mid-war tank (I've got a thing for schurzen). Useful in late war for a command tank or artillery FOO vehicle. Some of them even soldiered on in secondary theaters. These are Old Glory models.



PzIII series. D, J, M, early StuG and late StuG

 Next the Tiger I platoon. These are Battlefront models with resin hull and turret. The metal gun barrel makes the turret a bit unbalanced.




With lots of area to work with, I decided to try my hand at the famous 'ambush pattern' camouflage.

Just for completeness sake, there is a platoon of every Germano-panzerphile's wet-dream; the King Tigers. These are Old Glory models, with a cut down artillery officer for the commander.




Here's a couple of comparison shots of the beginning and end of my German armour stable:


Old Glory PzI beside OG PzVIb


As far as main battle tanks go, my German armour inventory is pretty complete now. I even have a few representative SP guns and tank hunters, but I don't have some of the late war models like the Hetzer or Panzer Jaeger IV (yet). Since I usually have artillery off board, SP guns like the Wespe or Hummel are a luxury.


PzI series
 ( I guess I should have included a picture of one of my Panzer IIs here, just to be complete.)

Pz38(t) series
 
PzIII series

PzIV series

The 'Big Cats'

I also finished up a platoon of the big 8-wheeled Sdkfz234/1 armoured cars and a flak half track in late war camo to keep the Typhoons at bay.



Selection of armoured recce
 The only vehicles I have left for the Germans are another pair of 234 armoured cars (another 234/1 and a Puma given to me by Ron), a platoon of half tracks that will get late war camo and a bag of Old Glory Opel Blitz trucks. All are awaiting assembly.

7 comments:

  1. Mmmmm, King Tigers ... very sexy. Nice work James. Love the muddy look of the tracks. and the schurzen are always nice. Well done.

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  2. Succumbing to Tiger II Syndrome, sad! My own, 20mm ; Germans have yet to actually have a German vehicle. I'm more intrigued by what they did with captured armour!

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  3. @Mike: thanks. I've always thought the usual metallic painting for tracks made them too clean looking.
    @Don: what's the point of painting up another Sherman or T34 with an Iron Cross on it? And 3CID didn't face the captured armour in 21st PzDiv. I'm not sure I'll ever get the King Tigers on the table anyway!

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  4. I've been informed on another forum that my Tiger Is are early models and shouldn't be in ambush pattern. So something more 'Kursky' should have been used.
    oops!
    In my defense: I was thinking Normandy, Totalize and the death of Wittmann and I wouldn't know the difference between and 'early' model Tiger I and a 'late' model!

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  5. Well, I wasn't thinking of putting black crosses on Shermans and T-34's. My 21. Panzer is all made up of French vehicles converted by the amaziingly creative Major Becker. Much more interesting.

    As far as early Tigers are concerned, do people think they threw away all the old Tigers when the new models came out? Twits!

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