Another New release has been announced by Dragon Models in 1/35th scale, within their ''Smart Kit'' series of releases - 7472 - Befehlsjager 38 Ausf.M (Smart Kit). Images can be seen:

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

If DML can get the "star" antenna correct and scale in styrene, they'll have some real bragging rights.

This one ought to be of particular interest for the dio builders looking for a command/control scene (or just simply fans of the 38t family!). There were supposed to be at least one of these per Jager abteilung (later orders increased it to 2) for command/coordination and it was, to all intents and purposes, a standard Marder III M with the right side ammunition bins removed and the necessary Fu 8 and FuSprGer f (replaced with Fu 5 in 1944) radio gear added in its place. All Marder III Ms starting in the summer of '43 were outfitted with the necessary basic brackets to allow them to be converted to Befehlsjager if needed.

Now that we see this version with the later features of the Marder III M in terms of the exhaust arrangement and the driver's hood, I wonder if DML has plans to introduce a "standard" later Marder III M in the near future?

Thanks for that - in 1 paragraph I now understand 180% more about this vehicle than I did 10 minutes ago!

Hi, Bill, I know we can always count on you for in-depth knowledge about Axis vehicles. Can you give us a quick sketch of these battalions?

For example, would one of these beasties be in command of say, a Ferdie/Elefant group or a Jagdpanther Abteilung?

Bill,

Normally you wouldn't see mixture of vehicle types within the JgAbt although it did happen on rare occasions for short periods of time depending. Normally the JgAbt units equipped with the Marder III M would turn them in and get re-equipped with JagdPanthers when those started to come available as whole units and therefore wouldn't have retained the Befehlsjager III Ms when they did. They would've instead used BefehlsJPs.

The Ferdie/Elefant units were "special" and the Befehls units there were always Ferdie/Elefants with additional radio equipment so far as I'm aware.

Problems often occurred in mixed units if the Bef. vehicle was equipped for example with the FuSprGer f vs. the Fu 5 and the frequencies didn't match with the receivers in the various vehicles they were supposed to be commanding. PT 7-2 has numerous field accounts of units reporting those types of problems and since the switchover to the Fu 5 wasn't consistent in terms of factory overlaps, it created problems even within units that had the same vehicle type but which might not all have the same up-to-date radio gear.

Thanks for the info, Bill. Interesting to hear a little about the organisation of these units. The kit looks like another winner from Dragon.

Thanks for the update.

Damn, Man, how'd you get to be so damned smart!

Great stuff, Wild Bill!

Bill,

Not smart, just read a lot and happened to have just gone through PT 7-2 when this thread popped up so it was still fresh in my mind and knew where to find the relevant sections on this particular variant. I had been reading it since it had information on the Marder II which I was contemplating as a potential near-future project (the reason I bought it a few months back) and read it cover-to-cover since it also include info on the Marder IIIs. One of the joys of having a good reference library available I guess, something I've been increasingly investing in more and more these days.

The PT series often has lots of little "hidden gems" in them from after-action reports and distributions to various units and some of the volumes have more of this than others depending on the subject in question. For example it was very enlightening to continually read about the complaints of PzJg commanders that their vehicles were constantly being misused as if they were Panzers or StuGs by infantry units they were attached to who didn't understand the proper tactics for their use but needed the "morale boost" of having them present and attached to their units!

Always happy to share when I can with the group...knowledge is useless if not shared!