Hi guy's, wish I'd found this campaign earlier but may still join in. Depends how the builds on the bench go and if I can clear them quickly.

If I do join I have a Israeli Chieftain I want to build, for those that don't know Israel tested the Chieftain and there is rumour that they were even used, so my take would be an updated Blazer Chieftain.

Here is the status of my build after 3 hours work last evening. The kit comes together very well and is really more or less foolproof.

Expect to finish construction tonight, so another update shortly.

Quick update.

I got the Assault Stuart painted last weekend.

Painted the roadwheels.

Side skirts. Stuck with the kit's version. If it ain't broke...don't fix it.

I decided to start on the crew. I fabbed up some figures from the spares. The guy of the left might be mostly from Tamiya's early M4. The one on the right is a frankenfigure. His arms and torso are the machine-gunner from the Tamiya M5 Stuart kit. The legs are Tamiya but I have no idea what figure set it came from. They still need some filling work done and paint...of course. I need to cut off the left one's legs so he sit on the loader's hatch like I want him to.




And that's it for now. I'm thinking about calling this vehicle "the Badger" or maybe "the Armadillo" or "Porcupine".

Alex It's looking great as for a name I thought the U.S. usually used famous general's names?

Paul

Alex, she's a beauty! (Looks like it would roll over backwards when fired. ) Living in the Badger State, I'm all for that one.
Paul, you're right that tanks were named for generals, but mobile guns such as the Priest, Scorpion, and Wolverine don't seem to follow a clear pattern.
Anyway, nice work all around, guys. Planning to get into this one soon. ...really!
-Sean H.

Thanks guys. She's coming along really nice. But yeah she is a stumpy looking gal. Some of those vehicle names were coined by the British. You can toss the Greyhound in there as well. I was going to go the use the US Generals for a name but just couldn't find one that I liked. I may go with a general's name but note that the troops called it something else.

Anyway, I'll decide on something before I write up the background story. I still have to do one for the Jagd-Sherman as well.

Nice StuGMan or ShertuG.

Here's my choice,

Will pick the Hull from



And the turret from

So this is the sort of thing I have in mind.

]

Paul

Started the Leo's Hull

Big update.

First up the Assault Stuart.

I added a stowage rack from a Sherman that I had in the spares. It makes her look a little longer. The cleaning rod is underneath. Since it will cover the placement points for some of the pioneer tools, I had to rearrange them. I moved the shovel to the rear of the upper hull casement.


Added something to stow the extra track. I was originally going to hang it on the rear of the upper hull casement. I really thought the front really needed something added to break it up. I did two lengths of four track lengths and fabricated some mounting brackets from scrap styrene.


Added the figures, a board across the front for added stowage, and painted up the pioneer tools. Decals from the kit. Lobbed off the "y" in "Victory" to make "Victor". So the assault Stuart's name is Victor. By the way, the commander figure is planed to be smoking, that's why his hand is up there like that. I really wanted a relaxed pose by both visible crewmen. Drybrushed it, washes, etc. I kind of got on a roll and completely overlooked getting some pictures of those processes.



Added stowage....and the commander's cigar.



It's a pretty day outside so let's go outside and get all artsy. I plopped Victor in to a planter box. There's some ash there from the grill. Tossed in some barricades from the Italeri set.






And with that the Assault Stuart...Victor...is done. I'll try to get a proper background narrative posted on it tonight.

But I'm not done yet. I got the Assault Sherman painted with a base coat. I'm still debating on what camo scheme I'm going with. So I added the MG, knocked off the antenna and then discovered it was in the way of the commander's hatch. Moved it. Added some bolt detail to the spare track brackets, painted, and mounted to the front glacis. Added a visor above the driver's vision ports. It's actually a leftover from my Panzer IV I'm building for the Unfinished Business Campaign. Painted the IR lenses black.




And that's it for now. One of my hold-ups on the camo is I'm debating on the origins of the vehicle. My original story was a what-if where Germany seeks a separate peace with the West after a successful assassination on Hitler. The other idea is a 1946-47 postwar rearming program where Shermans were upgunned with leftover war armaments as a stopgap.

Uploaded my finished Stuart pictures to the gallery. I'll be starting back on the Jagd-Sherman maybe this weekend. Here's the backstory for the Stuart.

The M5AT was conceived as an American version of the German StuG III to offer the troops a fire support platform. The engineers chose the M5 Stuart chassis as it was mostly obsolete. The turret was removed and the upper hull was raised. The vehicle was armed with the 75mm gun. It was felt that this gun filled the infantry support role and its use would address a surplus of available 75mm guns.

The vehicle was officially named the Hooker, after the Civil War General Hooker. However, the crews adopted the name "turtle" for it.

The Turtle was not well-received by its crews. It was a cramped vehicle with a crew of only 3 (commander, gunner, and driver). The gunner was responsible for loading the main gun. Though its armor was thicker than the Stuart, it was still weak against most German antitank rounds. The added weight reduced its range, speed, and track life. The main gun did okay against machinegun nests and pillboxes but struggled against German armor.

By war's end, most of the Turtles had been redeployed to support the 82nd and 101st Airborne Units. Others would serve well in the Pacific Theater at Okinawa, mainly as a bunker buster. Turtles would remain in Japan and Europe as part of the occupation forces. Many of the Japanese based Turtles would be deployed to Korea, where they were lost.

Big update.

Originally I was going to go with a modified ambush scheme. Instead, I decided to camo the JagdSherman in something simple but different. I used masking tape to mask off a semi-splinter pattern. The plane was to dab green around these masked areas. I decided against camo-ing the entire vehicle, so I focused on the front areas.


I applied the paint with a stiff bristle brush. It's rough and crude by design. As I went, I actually started forcing the brush under the tape so the lines wouldn't be so clean. For the green I used Polly S RLM 72. It's a bit darker than I normally use.


Tape off and it came out as planned.


A quick wash of black and some light OD drybrushing. Added some pretty basic decal markings.


Now I need a crew. I decided to go with three figures. The loader's hatch is pretty huge and with just a single figure you really can see the innards of the vehicle....which is basically the original top of the Sherman hull. I scopped out a few candidates from the Panzer Crewman Figure Spares box.


I settled on these three. The commander is from an old Tamiya kit. The middle guy is from Tamiya's StuG III/G. I think the last guy is from Dragon's StuG III/A kit. It might be from their early StuG crew figure set.


Painted. The middle guy will be holding an assault rifle. From that angle it looks like the commander is missing an arms...but I assure you it's is there.



Figures done and secured. She's done.






Such a pretty day outside. And we can test that camo.










And with that the Jagdsherman is done. I'll upload the pictures into the gallery today or tomorrow.

Now time to start on the Panzer IV/ausf. L. I was originally going to pick up an old Academy kit and maybe a set of Academy tracks...the tracks come with the late style idlers. Then I remembered that I have an old Dragon Panzer IV/J (late) which I hated to build. It has everything I needed including the ate exhausts. I dug it out and decided to use it instead.


Started breaking it down.



I have got two ideas on the side and bow plates. The first slopes the sides and bow plate. These are then connected by a angled piece. A bit tricky for a stressed industrial plant to try to manufacture.


An alternative is a simpler angled plate configuration similar to the one seen on the Panthers. I'm probably going to go with this one.


So now that that one is started I'll take a break to focus on some other projects. It'll also allow me to think through a few things.

Hi, i've enlisted to this campaign, i've just ordered merkava 3d by hobbyboss which will be the basis for my entry on this campaign, the theme is "schwere panzer mit schurzen und zimmerit", and i already had the design on my sketchbook. Originally, i planned the base was merkava mark iv/ leopard 2a4, but i find out mark iiiD looks more futuristic so, i'll use it. I will add some AM parts (espescially live-resin's MK19 grenade launcher and SAG turret)

[b]the background[b/]
(based on the time riders novel)
the cancellation of operation barbarossa caused The german won over the allies in world war 2, hitler died in 1956, and hess became his successor, but an internal fracture on the board of leaders caused a coup by kramer (the fictional character) in 1974making him the next fuhrer. Kramer is not just a talented politician and leader, but also a genius scientist, proved to design numerous excellent-performance tanks when he was an officer on the heer.he and his scientist conduct research on a 120 mm guided cannon and high-powered fuel-efficient high speed hybrid engine, later will given the codename 'blitz' and 'Psh74' respectively. krupp got the tender for the blitz and and porsche for the Psh74, due to the experience porsche had building the hybrid engine for the maus. Henschel then got the tender to build the full tank based on the 2 new technology. The result was panzerkampfwagen IX ausfuhrung A. The first five prototypes rolled out of the factory in 1976. It was sent to russia, for operation crusade, similiar to rhe original plans of operation barbarossa. It was proved that it could perform extremely well, altough some flaws was discovered during the test. After petrenko (soviet leader that time) proposes peace as exchange for 1/4 of it's western and southern territory (with exception of stalingrad and moscow). Giving a moment of peace. The pz IXA prototypes is withdrawn during this gap to be evaluated.the results are good, altough it's proven to be weak against missiles due to it's steel interior and armor. Kramer then ordered the production of PzIX A, with the kevlar inner lining for better crew protection and reactive armor, codenamed Pz IXA1 Kramer has no more interest on russia, because he already conquer the oilfields on southern russia, and the russians promised them to supply the raw resources of siberia.
His next plan is britain, so he needed a heavy tank like Pz IX A, but with a better protection against rockets and missile. One of his scientist found that carbon fiber is extremely good to withstand the RPG typed rockets due to it's heat resistant nature. A research was conducted to make a carbon composite auxillary armor for Pz IX A1, and an electrical thermal targeting system with a sensor jammer to make it less visible.the research was done in 1980, and kramer planned it to be installed on Pz IXA1, resulting Pz IXA2. Pz IX A1 and A2 is a separate unit, A1 is for regular tank batallion, while A2 is for elite tank batallions. It entered production 18 1982 and the first tank is finished in 1985

Go Get the M61A5! Prove that UC hardgraph can be Bad*ss too!!
If possible, display it with a 1/48 zaku and replicate the scene when yandell's tank platoon beats up 3 zakus (MS igloo 2, episode 2)
----------------------------
By the way, while waiting my merkava to arrive tomorrow, i'm doing my schutzwagen, based on the academy M966 TOW carrier.

The build starts in april before i knew about this campaign, planned to display in alongside the Pz IX B2 (a more modern commander variant from the Pz IX i explained above)

A quick update. I ground off the bullet splash-guard from the upper hull. The new turret I am planning won't clear the guard.



The section for the driver and hull MGer's hatches is at a slight angle. I'm probably going to replace the hatches with a simplified version like a late Panther. This should do away with the slight angle and make the side angled plates easier to fit. Remember...late-late war...production simplified as much as possible.



Anyway, that's it for now. I'll probably start cutting out the hull plates this week...or this weekend. I'm still mentally working out the turret design. I'm going to widen and lengthen the turret.

I know I am a little late in joining the campaign, but my recent project seems to tie in nicely. Last month I started on a 1/35 JagdSturm Tiger. I was inspired by a picture of a 1/72 conversion kit from Armory. My baseline kit was the old Italeri Sturmtiger with a mantlet and 122mm gun from the Cyber Hobby 3 in 1 JSU-152 kit.

The Germans were pretty inventive with modifying enemy weapons for their own use. I think the mounting of the Soviet 122mm D-25T gun in the Sturmtiger chassis would be a lethal combination. The premise of this build will be a last ditch long range tank hunter on the Seelow Heights during the April 1945 Soviet advance on Berlin.

my merkava arrived today, tomorrow ready for execution, here's the basic concept (will be updated, sorry for the bad drawing skill

before start


(pics taken few days ago)
progress

(the camo trouser looks weird, so i revised it)
here's the revised one



and scratchbuilt the interior (my first time interior scratchbuild)

the paintin hasn't finished yet, will make the color a bit lighter
the seats and TOW from my scraped bradley, and the container from dragon's totenkopf premium edition

I've been working on the Panzer IV ausf. L for the past couple of weeks. There was a lot of trial and error so I skimmed over a lot of it to just show the progress. Here's my progress.

Sides and glacis plate cut using the templates shown in last update. I decided to go with periscopes for the driver like you see in the late Panthers.




I used a motor tool to remove the slash guard and driver and MG hatch details. I re-drew a template for a revised hatch set-up based on the late Panther style.


Once cut from styrene I just used the new hatch plate as an overlay.


Time to start working on the turret. I actually went back and forth between a couple of turret styles. I ended up going with a Panther styled turret because that is what was used on the E-50 tanks. I added a thick section of styrene to the MGer's side to act as a spacer. As is, the turret sits off-center. This should make it look more centered so I can use the original turret as part of the new turret's framework, namely the turret ring.


Templates for the turret sides. There were lots of trials and errors here...much card stock was sacrificed to the scratchbuild gods.


I got the plates close enough to work with. I had to trim them to fit.


Basic turret construction is done. It really looks like a Panther turret. It's actually smaller. The mantlet came from the spares.


The gun mounted and turret on the hull. I used a 75mm pak gun I had in the spares. It's longer than the gun that came with the kit. I had to use a space to get it to sit in the mantlet. Added the bow MG bubble (spares). For the cupola, I used the one that came with the kit. I also salvaged the kit's close-in defense port.


Added the ventilators and rear hatch. For those I used the kit's driver and MG hatches. They look crooked in the picture so I'll have to give them a good look-over and fix that if needed. I did take the liberty of giving the crew back the motor for the turret so I added an auxiliary exhaust from the spares.






And that's where I stand right now. I've got a lot of cleanup and I have to add the tools. Of course it needs paint. I'm debating on a paint style. I'm happy the way it is working out. I think the turret is too high.

I wrapped up the build last night and she's ready for paint. I'm not sure of how I'll paint her. Since I jumped ahead and made her an ausf. L I figure she'd be in service mid to late 1946. So I could justify doing a winter camo. I probably won't start paint until this weekend or next week so I've got time to mull over it.

The Panzer IV ausf. L continued the shift to sloped armor seen in the ausf. K and to take advantage of sharing components with the Panther tanks. In addition, the turret was revised in to a scaled down version of the Panther turret. Initial attempts were to arm it with the higher velocity Panther 75mm gun. Even with the larger turret, there was inadequate space for the larger gun, ammunition, and crew space. The old Panzer IV long 75mm gun was retained.

The ausf. L retained the powered turret that was reintroduced in the ausf. K. Some were equipped with IR Nightfighting Equipment, though those were mostly limited to "fire brigades" or Headquarters vehicles.

The ausf. L was introduced in June of 1946, where it was often mistaken for its Panther cousin. The ausf. L would serve as a stop-gap vehicle until the E-50 and E-75 panzers were in production. Even after their introduction, production of the panzer IVs would continue until the war's end in January 1947.

Painted base cat of flat white. I decided go go with a winter camo scheme. I masked off the tracks and running gear with cling wrap. I plan on painting these later, by hand.







I kind of jumped ahead to the finish line here. I don't have pictures of washes, dry-brushing, and hanging the equipment.

I took it outside for pictures. Given the time of year, as well as my location, there's no snow. I borrowed a snow base from another model and used it.











That's it. Generally, I like how it came out. I think the turret is too large and could be scaled down a bit more.

I'm debating on a next project. I might just wait until What-If 5.

I decided to go ahead with the next project. I had actually started it back in the 90s, got it out a couple of years ago and piddled with it for a bit before putting it back in the stash.
It's the old RPM Vickers E. The idea is that several of these were sold to China and during the fighting some of these were captured by the Japanese. As Allied pressure builds against the Japanese, they request aid from their ally in Germany. They receive weapons and plans to make more, including several 5cm pak guns. Of note, the Germans don't give them Tiger plans and 88 plans. They give them examples that are becoming outdated against Soviet forces but still have some life against Western Allied weaponry (M4s and M3s)...also these may be easier manufactured by Japan's industry.
The Japanese follow German plans and convert a number of captured Vickers tanks to mount the 5cm pak as a tank destroyer. I figure this could be used on larger islands like Okinawa, China, and the Japanese home islands. Anyway, something different.
The deep green paint is a long story. The short version was that the kit was a test subject for some paint I was given.



I had a 5cm gun in the spares. I thought I had a mount from a Panzer 3 but could not find it. I decided to use an early StuG mount instead. It's really too large but I figure I can cut it down to better fit the tank's size.


I went ahead and cut the hull. I made a mistake with the Jag-Sherman and had it too tall. I didn't want to repeat that mistake here.


Of course I found the missing panzer 3 mount so I'll be using that instead. I'll be tweaking the mount cut-out to allow the smaller mount to work.

I figure this will be a quick little project I'll play with. I could have gone with Polish Vickers captured by the Germans and later converted but I wanted to do something a bit different.

I got a lot of work done to the Jag-Vickers over the weekend thanks to the weather.

A little picture-in-picture....I found the Panzer 3 mantlet so I reworked the bow plate. Tehe way the Vickers is set up with the driver, I just figured the Japanese moved the sight to the other side. I'll probably trim down the coax sleeve.



Translating the templates to styrene. I fabricated a mount for the gun.



Side plate templates. I decided to keep the air intake covers. Due to the small nature of the fighting compartment, I decided to extend the rear of the casement over the air intake housing. I figure this would be great for ammunition storage for the 5cm gun.



Upper hull sides cut and mounted.mounted the gunner's hatch closed. Hinges are made from styrene.



Roof cut and mounted. I kept it simple for the hatches. I



Hatches all on. Added grab handles. I used a German periscope from the spares and added it to the commander's front hatch.





And that's where I stand at the moment. It has built up pretty fast. I still have to add the tools and other fixtures to the exterior. Tracks are terrible for this kit. I had to staple each run and one of them is on the verge of breaking.

Gepard II....The German Army's future Line of Sight Heavy Air Defence system.

Graeme, that canon looks amazing on that Leopard chassis.