....since I got ya'll here -- This site doesn't Email notices about forum responses , does it ?
I looked , but sometimes I miss the obvious
Keith

Braille scale as in you'll go blind trying to see the tiny parts..lol

Well , well .
The package has arrived - 3 days early

So , here are the bulk components I'll be using :




I ordered extra track to be sure I had what I needed for spares and the right side of the tank will have terrain displaced suspension in the dio ,so I wanted NO PROBLEMS .

These are most of the figures I'll be working from ( a 250/1 crew on the way ) modifying as nec .



The Tamiya PE looks pretty enough to wear



don't know how it scales ..? .

These will be the Cat's dio mates



But - First the Panther !
I need to get this MaK Camel off the bench
. .. ...or do I ? ..

Keith;

And you are RIGHT! "Shoot at everything". That's exactly what happened. Actually, worse yet, the first Befehlspanzer were those small, boxy modified Pz I-B - the SdKfz 265. Enemy AT gunners quickly figured out that the "odd guy on the field" was the guy to shoot at first!

The conundrum faced by the Germans (and by anyone else also wanting an armored front-line command vehicle) was needing to ensure command tanks received no more attention than any other tank, while still meeting the function, included bearing a unit commander and extra radios, etc.... A problem still current "in spades" with modern command vehicles.

The added radios, etc. take up room inside those cramped "Befehls" turrets. When these tanks became "Beobachtungspanzer" and / or FLIVO, the room problem got more critical, as the crew needed a chart-table for maps...

The first solution was that boxy -265 thing. But that looks special in the eyes of enemy gunners. Taking the main guns out of larger tanks met the room need, but made them look conspicuous and "special"... So, starting with Panzer III and seen in early Panther mods, a dummy main-gun was supplied so that things looked fairly "typical" from a distance. However, MOST BefehlsPanther and FLIVO-Panther were true gun-tanks- and just carried reduced ammo-loads to create functional space.

Interestingly, Dragon and CyberHobby put out kits of the prototype Panther D Befehls / Beobachtungs (CH white box) with dummy gun, and Panther G - Befehls with dummy gun (Dragon 9xxx series, I think). There was perhaps only one (1) D - Beobachtungs with dummy, and maybe only a handful of G Befehls with dummy actually made. MOST BefehlsPanther were gun tanks.

Cheers!

Bob

"Tiny parts". "NOW you tell me!"

I was wondering what those tiny flakes and specks of styrene floating around in the ArmorPro 1/72 box were!

Bob

Well , after much net-surfing , I've ordered the book by Walter Spielberger , " Panther & It's Variants "
Cheers ,
Keith

If you want some awesome references ..check these out..

http://www.panzertracts.com/

Rick

Indeed , Rick .
I have my eye on some of Jentz's books for my next purchase .
It was between Spielberger and Jentz's Panther book this time around and I could get only one .
The comments I read indicated that Spielberger's was weighted more to the mechanical and Jentz's more to the operational . That they complemented each other rather than competed .

Keith