Hi everyone. This is my first attempt at building armor. My comfort zone is aircraft so this is unknown waters for me so be kind.

I choose the Dragon Sd.kfz.184 Ferdinand in 1/72. I love the detail of the larger scale models but my home won't allow it. Lucky for me I found the highly Dragon kits.



Characteristics of the "Ferdinand," a German self-propelled gun

General
Weight 70-72 tons
Length 22 feet, 11 3/4 in
Height 9 feet, 10 in
Width 11 feet, 5 3/4 in
Track width 2 feet, 5 1/2 in
Clearance 1 foot, 7 1/2 in

Armor
Hull
Front 7.87 in
Sides (vertical) 6.29 in
Rear 4.33 in
Belly 1.57 in

Fighting Compartment
Front (vertical) 7.87 in
Sides (sloping) 3.74 in
Rear (sloping) 3.34 in
Roof 1.57 in
Mantlet plate 4.33 in

Armament
One 88-mm super-long gun fitted with muzzle brake.
One MG 42.

Ammunition carried
70-90 rounds for gun
2,000 rounds for MG.

Suspension
Six independently sprung bogies, diameter 2 feet, 7 1/2 inches; evenly spaced and not overlapping.

Performance
Maximum speed 12 1/2 mph
Cruising speed 6-9 mph
Maximum gradient 30°

Drive
Two Maybach motors, HL-120 TRM 300 hp each.

Crew
Total, six: commanding officer of ordnance--lieutenant (tank or artillery), gunner, mechanic-driver, radio operator, two loaders.

Brief History

What do the German Tiger tank and Ferdinand tank destroyer have in common?

Both vehicles had their origins in a competition to become Germany's premier heavy battle tank of WWII. Two designs were submitted for Hitler's consideration in April 1942, one by Henschel and one by Porsche. The Henschel design won the competition and soon gained infamy as the Tiger I tank. The Porsche design, on the other hand, was produced in limited numbers and modified into a tank destroyer (named the "Ferdinand" in honor of its creator, Ferdinand Porsche) that by most accounts was a bitter disappointment.

Ferdinands first saw action in Russia during the Battle of Kursk in July 1943. Although the Ferdinand was a successful tank destroyer when engaging targets at long range, its complete lack of defensive armament made it extremely vulnerable to close-in infantry attacks. According to Squadron's "Tiger in Action", Ferdinand crews sometimes resorted to firing an MG 42 machine gun down the barrel of the main gun to counter infantry attacks!

Following the German defeat at Kursk, surviving Ferdinands were returned to Germany and retrofitted with a commander's cupola and a bow mounted MG 34 machine gun for protection. These vehicles were redesignated as "Elefants" for service in Italy during 1944. Once again, however, the Sd.Kfz. 184 Ferdinand/Elefant was not up to the task and suffered heavy losses.

Here are the spree shots. This kit has some really nice details.









Even the underside is detailed




Back of the turret opened hatch



Hatch in place



The front wall of the Turret was put in place



this collar came cracked through at the top. I used a little ca glue to restore it. You can still see the seam of the break. This should be invisible after primer and paint.



Installed the 88-mm super-long gun along with the fitted muzzle break



Two top hatches installed



Its nothing ground shattering but its progress

Some more history of the Ferdinand

The "Ferdinand" is guided by observation through periscopes (one each for the commanding officer, the driver, and the gunner). There are no observation slots. Radio transmitter and receiver are provided for external communication; there is a radio-microphone for internal communication. The motor is situated practically in the center of the hull. Gasoline capacity is 242 gallons.

Russian experience shows that the most effective methods of fighting the "Ferdinand" are:

(a) Concentrated artillery fire, with the use of armor-piercing incendiary projectiles of all calibers on the armored installation of the gun and on the gasoline storage tanks in the center of the hull.

(b) Artillery fire of all calibers on the cannon, observation equipment and on the mobile parts of the gun (caterpillar, driving and steering wheels, bogie wheels).

(c) Grenade and Molotov cocktail attacks on the motor section, the turret lid, the rear slot of the turret through which empty shell cases are discharged.

The "Ferdinand" self-propelled guns are organically included in German heavy demolition antitank battalions. Such battalions contain three artillery companies, a headquarters company, a repair company and transport. Each artillery company has a total of 14 "Ferdinands," four to each of three platoons and two to immediate company control. The headquarters company has two of these new self-propelled guns also. Thus the battalion has a total of 44 "Ferdinands."

The Ferdinand is ready for primer and paint. As you will see from the photos the hull and top assembly is basically all assembled except for some small bits and pieces that I want painted first like the wheels and the tow links.









The top is not secured at this point. it's just there for the photos.





Thanks for taking the time to look at my project

Dirk,

For a Newby to armour you are doing a good job. Your explanations and historical background are interesting and well done. The added information takes this build beyond a typical blog (Build Log). Might I suggest that you consider doing and submitting either a Feature or Build Review here after completion. It's postings like this that can greatly assist others when they come to attempting the same or similar kit. Great job so far and I'll watch your progress with interest.

Cheers,
tread_geek

Thanks for the kind words Tread. I'm not sure I would know how to do a Feature or a review or what 's even involved.

If one does not fail at times, then one has not challenged himself.
Ferdinand Porsche

I painted this the other night using RLM79 (Sandgelb) the closest color I had to the actual color. It didn't look to bad but I decided it was a little two dark so it was off to the LHS I went. I came back with a few goodies some of which was some Panzer paint. Panzer red Brown, Panzer Olive Green and Panzer Dark yellow. The dark yellow looks a lot better .



Next I'll be moving onto the wheels

Alrighty guys. I'm feeling rested, refreshed and ready to press on with all projects. I'm going to start off with the Ferdinand. Since I last left you I've painted and assembled all the wheels. 32 pieces made up 12 road wheels and 4 sprocket wheels.



Next i started the camouflage paint scheme. This was rather easy using some Panzer Olive Green paint. For my first attempt I'm pretty happy with it.













Next I installed some of the fiddly bits like the head lights, storage box on the right side of the hull and the brace that holds the gun in place.



Up next will be the tracks.

Till then thanks for taking the time to look at my work

For a Feature, just type up your text in a text editor (Wordpad, TextEdit etc). This basically would be what you are writing in each of your posts. Tie the parts together with a sentence or two and at the end offer any conclusions, caveats or observations about the kit. And equally, if not more important, lots and lots of pictures (obviously you have that covered). I've seen some of your other posts and I can see that you do a fine job of describing the "action."

Just in passing. If you continue to build 1/72 scale or smaller, you might consider posting your builds in the Braille Scale forum. The denizens that hang out there are qauite appreciative of small scale builds.

Cheers,
tread_geek

Time to paint us some tracks. Here are the colors I started with. Dark Sea Blue, Flat Black and a dash of Panzer Red Brown.







Painting the rubber track sucks. After about a week the paint was still tacky.

Once the basic track color was achieved it was time to weather it a bit. To do this I made a bit of a slurry wash . For this I went back to the Panzer red brown and some tinner. I made it extra thin. This allowed the mixture to seep down past the tracks and into the track links.







Next using some Model Master steel I attempted to create the wear on the track from driving over roads and rocks. This was done by dry brushing the steel over the high parts of the tracks. Next time I will make sure the prush is even dryer. :?



Using some CA glue I attached the tracks. I keep hearing people complain about this part of building armor but for me this went without a hitch.







Now in the case of the Ferdinand, the tracks rest on the top of the road wheels. So I went back to the CA glue and applied some to the middle three wheels and then held the track in place with some folded cardboard.





Till next time thanks for looking

While waiting for the future cote to dry on the Blackbird I turned my attention back to the Ferdinand. The tracks are on and in place the next thing is the fenders. The fenders got painted and camoed at the same time the rest of the beast was painted but I held off installing then until the tracks were in place. I dry fit the fenders and compared them to what few photos I have of the Ferdinand and one thing stood out on every photo and every drawling. Not one had perfect fenders! Each and every one was damaged, bent and missing parts. Looking at what was supplied by Dragon there was no way to make them damaged> so taking a note from Glenn and his Tiger I decided to make fenders from scratch using a tin can. This is going to be another first for me. Not wanting to waste the contents I decided to drink the contents first. I was looking forward to this part. Considering I've never done something like this I figured the alcohol would take off the edge and inhibitions going forward.



After three of these I realized the error in my thought process and found one of these. Again in the economy I have a hard time throwing away something good but I'm not a soda drinker so what to do? Ahh, you’ve heard of a Jack (Daniels) and Coke? Well I made a Dr. Pepper and coke. SWEET!!!! Wheerr are.. my... sissorssssss?







One down and one to go



Here you can see the difference between the kit supplied fender and my tin can fender



Installed



Wear and damage added



Right side in place



More battle damage and wear



That's all for now. Next will be a cote of Future and then some weathering. I think I might need some more Jack for that.

Your Ferdinand is looking great so far. I really like how your fenders came out

Thanks Kirk. I'm very pleased with it so far. I look forward to doing more armor. This is what I picked up so far.



I still want to go get an Elephant and a T34/76

After an application of Future the Ferdinand is looking rather shinny



pplied the decals tonight. It's good to see that Dragon's decal quality is just as horrable in the armor department as in the aircraft department. :evil:Thick as cardboard and unable to conform to contours in the model :evil::evil:



The flash makes the number decal look bad but in actuality it looks fine



:evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: Horrible!!!!! :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil:

Dirk,

Nice build you have going here! I like your step by step photo approach and the history to go with the build. I'll keep dropping by to see more of your progress. Keep up the good work.

Thanks for sharing and posting here.

-Eddy

Almost there, I need to do some weathering and then mount it to a base.







You can see here the decal finally settled down and conformed to the contors of the tank. SWEET!