For the Engineering Campaign I opted to build the Italeri Berge Panther, I know I can hear the groans already. I am not going for any AM items with the possible exception of Friul tracks, I am however doing some scratch work on this model. I started with the hull construction which is straight forward, I do wish they had placed a better form of locater for the separate suspension items as it is almost a case of that is about right.




General fit of parts was OK but not great, but with some clean up and tweaking it looks acceptable.

The winch in this kit is horrid as each drum has moulded cable detail which is incredibly poor, they also do not give you good cylinders as they are slightly bowed out when glued together. So It was off to South Yorkshire and my Uncles workshop (I always feel like a kid in a sweetshop there) and get some brass rod and turn my own on a lathe. I turned the main cable storage drum and the two pulley drums, are they perfect I don’t know, but I am happy with my result. There is still some work to do on the winch but its getting there.





Finally for this segment I applied zimmerit to the BergePanther as the BergePanther was made using damaged Panthers, which in my mind means they would have heavily damaged (possibly) zimmerit. To replicate the zimmerit I used a set of Tamiya combs and decorators caulk, this is my first attempt proper at replicating zimmerit and while I have seen far better I was happy with my start on a new skill.

Good start Darren. Very good start.

That beat up Zimm is going to look real nice when you weather this project. I'm looking forward to seeing how this progresses along.

Thank you for the comments James and Jeremy.

Here is what I have got up to today. I have assembled the spade at the rear which despite comments about it being covered in push out marks I only had 10 to deal with, there are 2 on the spade on the front flat which can be seen in the pictures as I have not attacked them yet with the rest being on the arms which are easily sanded away. The large circle depression you can see on the arms near the rear of the vehicle are supposed to be there.



I have also started work on the crew compartment but it is a long way from finished.



Finally a round up of the model so far. I have damaged the zimmerit at the rear very heavily as the early Panthers I believe suffered engine fires, and my model will depict one of these rebuilt as a Berge Panther.

Nice progress, keep going Darren.

This looks like it's coming along nicely Darren. Regarding the early Panthers, from what I have read and been told the electrical system that was tied into the engine system was prone to suddenly catch on fire, which of course probably means that the engine bay likely caught on fire as well in this situation.

Darren

Looking good so far. As regards the crew compartment, I would strongly recommend removing the "steering wheel" - Panthers didn't have one, and replace it with scratch built steering levers, one each side.

The other thing that you will have to scatchbuild is the major towing attachment which sat in the middle of the rear plate. I don't know if Italeri included it or not, as it's a while since I built my Berge. If you need, I can send you details - it's a pretty simple attachment.

Have fun

Rob

Rob if you can I would like to see the plans you have. Regarding the steering wheel; it was my belief that steering wheels in AFV's was a fairly recent addition however as I have ref pictures from inside a Panther G which has this design of steering wheel I included it, however that is a Panther G and this being an earlier version I think perhaps you are correct. I am assuming that neutral position for the tillers would be at forearm length from the body, but what height would they be.

Thank you for your help

Darren

I'm no expert at attaching photos to the forum, so if you send me a PM with your email address, I can reply with the drawings attached. I also have two pages of photos of a Bergepanther winch which may be of assistance. I'm trying to find a photo of a Panther driver's compartment to show the brake levers, but believe me, no Panthers had steering wheels.

Another point you need to watch with Berges is that the Ausfuhrung, ie A or G, does not necessiraly match the hull type. For example, a Berge G can be on a Panther A or G hull, and a Berge A can be on a Panther D or A hull. Initially, Berges were built on damaged hulls, but the later Berge Gs were built on new Panther G hulls. You are quite correct when you state that the Italeri kit is a Berge A.

Have fun - look forward to hearing from you

Rob

I have the 8 books on the Panther from AJ Press and so have a lot of ref material for the exterior, and I have quite a few other books on Panthers and the DVD on the Panther that caused all the fuss over its accuracy however you can never have enough ref material So thank you for the offer and PM sent.

Hey Darren,

The Panthers lookin good!

And, uh, can you , uh maybe PM me your address, uh again....



cheers

Thanks Rick I hope to have an update tonight.

Good work Darren, I've been toying with the idea of getting the ICM version which is quite cheap but I have to clear some of the stash first

Thanks Pat I have also been looking out for the ICM Berge, I thought it was OOP though.

Just not looking hard enough Darren. A quick Google shows me this.

http://www.netmerchants.co.uk/product.php/5155/134/bergepanther_with_german_tank_crew

I don't think its worth that much but I'm a skinflint and will gladly wait out for an ebay jobbie.

Alan

Yep Alan you are right as I did a search after typing that reply and found it everywhere I looked, but I believe I am correct that it has just been re-released as a search 5 or 6 weeks ago produced lots of out of stock results. I think I might go for Halifax Models as they have it for £19.99 and they only charge £2 postage in the UK regardless of what or how much you order, I do agree however that is more expensive than I expected for this kit.

Firstly sorry for the late update as it took longer than expected to get the items the way I was happy with.

The moulded chain detail on this kit is very poor and so I opted to attack the detail and replace it starting with the lowered panel. I simply cut away the moulded chain and then used what my Mk 1 eyeball said looked right, in this case it was No 1 chain from JB Model a review of which can be seen here. I then drilled 0.5mm holes and inserted wire loops to connect the chain.





Then I started on the hoist that was a little more involved. In this area I had to remove chain detail, a hook, and wire brace, I have/am considering also freeing up the boom arm at its base but I am unsure if that will really add to the model. To replicate the removed pieces I used 0.5mm wire to make the hook and create the wire brace with a strip of foil wrapped around the ends to replicate the loops, and No3 chain link again from RB Model. I leave it to you to decide if my work has improved the model or not.




Here is the model as it stands with all separate pieces brought together.




Now it may be a couple of weeks before the next update as I am going to start on the drivers compartment, and as I will be working for the next 4 nights it is going to take a while. Here is a picture of the driver’s area that I will be working from.

You've made a good start, and the Zimmerit has turned out well. Dimensionally, the Italeri upper hull is a mess, but that's less obvious on the Bergepanther than on the gun tank (it's about eight scale inches short, front to back). The only true work-around would be to substitute a Dragon early Panther A kit, and adapt the Italeri recovery parts (the advantage there would be that you also get a full set of link to link track and photoetch in the box, and Dragon's road wheels also look a lot better). However, since you've opted to stick with the kit parts, I would at least suggest that you grab a set of brass engine deck screens (Aber and Eduard offer inexpensive mini-sets of PE screens for those who don't want a huge photoetch set). These add a lot of visual interest to the model, and they disguise the Italeri grills, which don't even match each other. Tamiya and Cyber Hobby also offer better tools in their German on vehicle tool sets--again, not terribly expensive.

Gerald thank you for taking the time to post
I have been made aware of just some of the short comings of this model, and the reason I stuck with it was to see what I could do to improve its looks without spending a fortune or cutting the body work up, in a nut shell have some fun with it. The Italeri model that was re-released now comes with a small PE fret (I believe its from Eduard going by the feel of it) and I added it to a review of the model done by Jerry Jackson (MILITES-CHRISTI) which can be seen here the PE is very nice to work with and fits perfectly while being very easy to remove from the fret and shape.

I am considering getting another Italeri Bergepanther and using the parts with a DML early Panther, so I guess you could look at this as being a trial before really going to work on a more expensive proposition. Thank you again for your input and I hope this build continues to keep your interest.

Here is a small update on the BergePanther. I have added the PE grills on the rear engine deck and provided a better picture of the rear end. The PE supplied with this kit is one of the strong points of this model. The PE grills fit very well but are very thin and so easily damaged, which depending on what sort of model you are trying to create could be a blessing or a curse. The PE fret also contains 3 boxes for inside the winch housing and you also get the gun shield for the 20mm and an aircraft site. It is my belief that the PE fret is provided by Eduard due to its colour and feel, but there is nothing to prove that belief.

Darren nice progress. Keep it going. Well done.

I am getting close to applying the paint now with the lower and upper hull stuck to together (that was a pain), and I have added some parts to finalise the engine deck. In order to overcome the problem with the steering I cut plastic rod the width of the hull and then drilled holes to insert some thinner rod with hand grips built with shaped green putty, I made the hand brake by again shaping a piece of plastic rod. Unfortunately I have found that the work I had done is no even viewable, but at least I know its there as Alan McNeilly once said to me.

This is coming along very nicely Darren, and I like the approach that you are taking with it.

I have the Italeri M32 in my collection which I had thought about trying to build using your overall approach here, but the more I look into the more I realize that I am going to have use the parts on a Dragon Sherman kit to get the results I'm looking for.

Jeremy what parts are you talking about?

Let me restate it this way, what I am going to end up doing is using the M32 specific parts from the Italeri kit to modify a Dragon Sherman. I've talked with several people about this before I joined Armorama, and each conversation ended up coming to the same conclusion.

I'm always open to more insight regarding such things, so feel free to share any thoughts.

I think that your Italeri Berge Panther is probably a better kit than the M32, and what you are doing is looking really good here.

I also saw a finished Tiger II that had used the window caulking method for adding Zimm, and it looked great with the paint on it.