Should Dragon's Panther G Late smart kit be good for building an IR equipped Panther?
Is it accurate to build one with antiaircraft armor added, maybe side skirts too, or this combination was never used?
Thanks for your help

Yes it can be used to create one. The only problem is that there are no confirmed reports of IR equipped Panthers in action. There are reports from 2nd and 3rd hand sources, possible use against the Russians just outside of Berlin, captured Panthers with some of the pieces to IR, mostly the rear storage box, but no confirmed photos or reports (someone will most likely correct me on these).

Side skirts would most likely be used for sure as this was standard on Panthers. The anti-aircraft armour was mainly seen in Italy, but there are pictures that come from elsewhere in Eruope as well, France and West Germany, so it would most likely have been used as well.

Remember that the Commanders IR scope also has a steel band that attached to it and went thru a small hole in the turret roof to attach to the main gun to allow the scope to be elevated with the main gun, which indicates it was used by the Commander at night to aim the main gun onto target, so the AA roof armor would need to be notched for this band to be used.

I believe the Dragon Steel Wheeled Panther is the one with this turret arrangement for the IR scope to be diectly attached to the main gun.

With an IR Panther you have some latitude to play with.

Hope this helps you out.

Hi,

Gary just about summed it up in the above post. Panther G (IR) vehicles appeared VERY late in the war when the whole 3rd Reich was in it's death throes. As such, any suggestion of "must have's" or standardisation on these vehicles is pretty much a non-starter. I have no doubt someone, somewhere will start giving specific details and parameters however all this conjecture is based on a few grainy B&W pics that survived the war.

I built a late war Panther G (IR) about 4 years ago using the (then newly released) 1/35 DML Panther G kit and unlike Gary's suggestion used the standard kit as the steel wheel version was not out at the time. I simply painted it in a late war hard edge camo pattern with green as the base colour rather than dark yellow as per late 44 onwards German armour directives. I then did some scratchwork and extra detailing on an old Tamiya 1/35 IR unit from their own Panther kit. Is it 100% accurate? - for sure no it isn't! That said, it's a great piece to have in the collection and it was enjoyable to build.

The pics of my finished model are in my photo gallery if you want to take a peek or if you contact me direct, I can let you have better quality pics, WIP shots and also pics of the extra work I did on the IR units using the few references I could find to do so.

Don't get all tied-up trying to get 100% accuracy as you won't EVER achieve it where these tanks are concerned....and no-one else will either despite what they may try and tell you!

Have an enjoyable project and make sure you post some pics whilst it's WIP or when finished.
Best regards.
Gary

Thanks for your replies, gents!!!
I'll go for the vehicle I have in mind, taking your advice...
Gar, I'll be contacting you regarding your great model
Best regards