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Sdkfz 250/21

The 251/21 ‘drilling’ was one of those last months of the war lash-ups of the Wehrmacht which were actually very successful. In this case the combination of Luftwaffe surplus 1.5 cm mg 151 cannon, a Kriegesmarine pedestal and an army half-track. The vehicle had three times the fire power of the previous 251/17 equipped with the single 2 cm Flak 38 and had the advantage of the guns being belt fed. The only drawback was that it did not take many seconds of firing before the ammunition was exhausted.

AFV Club forgot to give you the large bin that should be in the right rear of the interior. This needs to be fabricated, and fortunately the plans in the Panzer tracts guide for the 251 will give you the correct dimensions. The gunner’s seat attached to the pedestal is over-sized and needs to be reduced down. I recall the visors on the front were a poor fit and better left open. These problems aside the AFV Club 251 Ausf D is a nice kit with very fine details.

I based this model on wrecked and abandoned vehicle photographed in the ‘Panzerwrecks 2’ book in Berlin which had minimal markings other than number plates.
I don’t expect these vehicles which served in the last month or so of the war would have been extensively weathered so I focused more on subtle chips and the exhaust pipe!