The chipping looks spot on! The camo is an interesting break from the usual German camo's too

John

Off topic, I know, but I'm curious - where were you in Oz?

Regards

Rob

I need your help again, guys. I want to add kill marks. I do not believe that barrel stripes would be appropriate. Feedback needed on appropriate kill marks and placement. TIA.

Love that's pz.iii, nice camouflage. Would the wheels really have white edges? Isn't it light grey? Anyway going to watch this develop further...

I believe the wheels are, in fact, white. Raw rubber is white. Carbon must be added to darken the rubber. This offered some protection from the sun. Germany does not have local access to most resources. Therefore, saving the trouble of using one resource does not seem too far fetched.
I read "the book" on this one.

you learn something new every day - make sense (and didnt know you added carbon to make it dark.... wasnt arguing the information, just curious....

The white rubber really opens new doors for setting this one apart.
Until I find hard evidence to the contrary, I am going forward with the victory markings. I have seen them on kubelwagens from the early days of the North African Campaign and on various vehicles fielded in the latter days.

Hi there, the book from which the fotos came is in my possesion, and in some of the fotos you can see that the color is peeling off or only just small fragments are left.
This also proves that the tires were actually painted and not "raw rubber". As to why this was done I still have not found out.
Paul

Glad to hear that. I have some over spray of panzer gray on the road wheels. The hubs will end up dunkelgelb, so this allows me room for error.

Perfect

Whole thing looking good Matt,including the wheels

Thank you for all of the kind compliments. After my attempt at a Pz.IV with all(and I mean ALL) of the goodies, this really hasn't been too difficult of a build. And, I love weathering.

Hi Matt,
did you find anything on the kill markings?
I checked all my ref. stuff and couldn´t find anything.
Paul

No I haven't. I'm expecting a couple of books on the panzer iii. Hopefully, one of them will have an answer.

Hey guys. I'll have some progress photos posted, soon. I have encountered a problem. I have lost one of the inner road wheels. Part A13, to be exact. I already posted this under the buy, sell, trade forum but thought somebody might miss it. I'm told it is common to a Stug, but don't know which one. I really don't want to have to buy a whole kit for one part.

Matt,

I can check to see if I have a spare.

Mark

Thanks, Mark. I hope you do. I have no problem offering a fair price for it.

DAK Tanks didn't carry Kill markinds as rule. They were a tight bunch and did not see the need for advertising what they did. Got that from a German tanker I met on first tour in Germany. Hope it helps

OK. I need to pick your brain. There are shipping stencils for the panzer. However, I can find no evidence of the stencils being used in North Africa. Were the tanks given shipping stencils or was this limited to Europe?

They were usually shipped in panzer grey and then painted in theatre. This means most if not all the shipping stencils were painted over quickly to get the equipment to the units as quickly as possible.

I think, as usual, if you can find no evidence of them being used, then you are perfectly correct to not use them... there is this very well known colour photo, not sure if it is of any help to you. Didn't the shpping stencils normally go on the turret bin? It seems the one at the back has that bit covered up by something.

Just speculating, but on the white painted tyre rims, I wonder if it was some attempt to reflect the heat... black rubber does tend to get very hot in direct overhead sunlight and perhaps hot enough to soften and degrade. White paint might help to prevent that. Just a thought.

Thanks lonewolf.

No problem! need anything else, just let me know.

As the North African campain is my favorite I would like to give some input:

The famous white wheels on some PzIII/IV of the Pz.Reg. 8, 15.PzDiv are a result of a parade in Naples, Italy, before the tanks has been loaded on the ships in April 1941 to go to Tripolis. Something which is even written in the photo text in "Unter der gluehenden Sonne Afrikas".
Some tanks even have had painted the upper area of the commanders cupola in white. This for no other reason than to impresse the Italian people.

Due to the hastly sending of the first German troops to North Africa, the vehicles of the Pz.Reg.5, 5th leichte Division, was send in mass to North Africa in their Standard colour RAL7021 and has been overpainted in Triplis with a lot of beige which was on hand, especially Italian sand colour and even with Luftwaffe RLM79, because Luftwaffe units was in North Africa something ealier.
As the Pz.reg.8, 15. Pz.Div was sended later to North Africa the most (or nearly all) tanks and the mass of the vehicles has been painted in RAL8000 either in Germany and/or in Naples before shipement.
I have read a lot of diary notes where this even has been mentioned.
As the PzIII Ausf.J was not within the initally first tanks sended to Lybia, because production started in March 1941, most, if not every deployed for DAK has been factory painted in RAL8000 with RAL7008 as 1/3 2nd colour.
RAL8020 was very rare on PzIII (in fact only seen on early PzIV Ausf. G), I have seen no photo of a PzIII in Lybia whose colour tone fits to RAL8020, only some Ausf. L/N sended with the 10.PD to Tunisia and even some Ausf.N of the 501st schw. Pz.Abt, sende to comepansate losses in early 1943.

According the rust: Please note that Australia is not Lybia. I am selling 4x4 trucks used by people to travel around the world, So I know how vehicles looks like, coming back for general service after weeks, months or even years from North Africa, South America, Asia and even Australia. Nothing is more worse than the Australian famous red earth, because the red colour is iron oxide, or even called rust...
Beside the Quattara depression (south of El Alamein), there are very few salty areas in the Lybian battlefield. And if you be 10-15 km south of the coast line the humidity reduces down dramatically. Further, the life time of german vehicles in Lybia was really short and especially german staff sergeants found even time to force the crews to service their vehicles.
So rust is not as evident as always shown on models.

What you have to add in any case is dust, dust and much more dust, espceially on tracked vehicles.
But as this covers the colours artistic of models, its most of the time "forgotten".

Erich