Alright, I recently bought the old (not ancient) Tamiya Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.J.
But this kit comes without the Schurzen or side armor plates.

Will the ET models E35091 1/35 Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.J Schurzen work with this kit and does it include the skirts for the turret?

(I know--should have held out for the Dragon Smart kit but the Tamiya was a good price)

The short answer is YES. It should fit and work on the Tamiya IV-J, and it has the turret schurzen set included.

But do beware; This is the mesh Thoma Schurzen set suitable only for the very late production IV-J. Many IV-J had the solid-plate schurzen seen on "all" IV-H. Only a relative few very late production IV-J ended up wearing the mesh Thoma Scurzen, and this kit - just like the set included in the Dragon "final production" / "last production" IV-J SmartKit is a pretty complex build production! It will look mondo cool, but you could be both very accurate for most J AND a lot simpler to go with a solid-plate schurzen set!

Bob

Actually, the panzer IV ausf. J had "Thoma" (wire-mesh) schurzen for most of its production run. Ausf. J production ran from June 1944 to April 1945. The switch-over from solid plates to the wire-mesh (Drahtgeflechtschurzen if you want to use the "proper" German term) occurred around Aug-Sept of 1944. It is true, though, that if you want to model this version of the schurzen accurately you will have a lot of work on your hands. For one thing, the lower hull brackets included in the Tamiya kit are for the solid plate schurzen and will need to be removed and scratchbuilt if you plan on modelling the Thoma schurzen. I did this for the Dragon Pz. Beob. IV ausf. J - here are two views of the brackets - with and without schurzen:





So not to discourage you but the easier way would probably be to just go with the solid plate (ausf. H) schurzen!

Thank you both. Very good information on both options. I'm trying for the late '45/46 look.

Did that stuff work ?

The Russians evidently did a multitude of testing with wire mesh screening and found it to be ineffective

Keith (urumomo): the schurzen and wire mesh screens worked for what it was designed for -- to lessen the effectiveness of Soviet AT Rifle bullets. The old trope that they were designed to detonate stand-off HEAT warheads has been debunked many times but many people still haven't heard that the myth was busted.

The thin metal plates or screen would cause an AT bullet round to tumble and not hit the AFV armor face dead on -- greatly reducing its penetrative ability.

Cool .

but the math says that there is more air there than wire .
Good chance the bullet will glide right through , yeah .

So there is some combat data available -- on their effectiveness ?

Just as a comment about Pz. Kpfw. IV ausf J production and the infamous wire-mesh (German translation; drahtgeflechte) "Thoma-schilde":

Upwards of 2970 ausf J were built, starting in June of 1944 through April of 1945. Most of these were built at the Nibelungenwerke St. Valentin, with a few being built by Vomag. Of these 2970, perhaps as many as 385 were completed after January of 1945 - so the very large majority of Ausf J were built in the last 6 months of 1944.

The wire-mesh schurtzen were approved as a replacement for the solid-plate schurzen in late August, 1944. But no stocks of the new drahtgeflechte schurzen were yet on hand in September '44, and maybe not many available until late October or even November. The mesh schurtzen and their racks conserved metal, but were more complex and slower to make than were the solid plate sets. It is very likely that few J produced before early November 1944 came with them. Drahtgeflechte appeared with increasing frequency on new J from November and December of 1944, and were certainly the production "norm" in 1945, but do note that J production rates fell sharply from November '44 down to a decreasing trickle through early 1945, so it is likely that more than half of J - those produced up into OCT '44 - actually never had "Thoma mesh Schurzen".

Interestingly, CyberHobby and Dragon kitted the "early J" and "mid-production J" with the solid schurzen, and went on to (to my personal delight!) kit a late / final J with the mesh schurzen. Which allows one to reasonably build both solid-plate and mesh versions as desired. It should perhaps be noted that the Dragon "final production" kit features the complete mesh set, including mesh covers between the hull and hull-schurzen, and a mesh floor around the turret-schurzen. There are few pictures showing these "extra bits", but a FEW are extant and confirm that this did indeed happen!

PS: The ET mesh set is pretty cool, but is a bunch of work! It WILL, however, look GREAT once done!

Bob

This thread is timely. I have the Tamiya early Pz IV J early as well and I wondered WHY did Tamiya not include the set of solid skirts?

I also wanted to buy a set of PE skirts for my Tamiya kit.

Bob-

Good info to have. This would be another example of the lag between official pronouncements versus actual factory implementation of orders. Since this is a topic of special interest to me do you have a reference for production rates of the Drahtgeflechtschurzen?

A third option which would be available for a late ausf. J would be to simply model the turret skirts (a must-have for an ausf. J IMO - I haven't seen any photos of this version manufactured without turret skirts)but to omit the hull side skirts and/or brackets, as in this famous photo of an ausf. J taken at the end of the war in Bavaria:

Keith (uromomo) wrote :"Cool . but the math says that there is more air there than wire .
Good chance the bullet will glide right through , yeah ."

You underestimate the tightness of the Thoma shield weave. The Soviet round was 14.5mm caliber round. The idea of the thoma screens and the schurzen was not to stop the round, only to impart tumbling where the kinetic energy of the round would dissipate and shatter on the AFV's armor face.

Have a read here http://www.stugiii.com/schurzen.html

As for a actual first hand account of how German panzermen felt about Soviet AT rifles, read this: http://amps-armor.org/BBS/bbsDetail.aspx?forum=5&id=9882&page=5 (about halfway down he talks about their effectiveness)

Maybe this will lessen your skepticism.

FYI,
I have read on another site concerning the scale of the mesh used the best is from a kitchen/cooking strainer on sale at I believe Ikea ?
J

Hmm, appears that my last comment didn't post.
Anyway.
Thank you all for very good information.
I hope this topic continues
But it seems the solid plates are the better/easier/more historically accurate path.

Which AM kit would y'all suggest for the schurzen and the turret armor as I'm sure that is far from scale thickness.

Great info here!

I encourage everyone to be investigative .

Thank you , Roy
Those links are great ; that's exactly what I was seeking .
As you stated , there is a lot of misinformation out there .

Cool thread -- I'm learning a lot .

Ciao

Jerry, the IKEA item is a mesh lid for a frying pan, to prevent spats on your stove.

Corsair,

You need a strenghtened turret fan cover to make the model into a vehicle with mesh schurzen. Do you have any other Pz IV kits in your stash?

Kevin;

At this point, being as I have packed and shipped most of my library and other household stuff in my relocation across our great land... I cannot dig out any of the possible refs! The info on the J is actually pretty widely available - although folks seem to have slightly different specific production numbers at different times. As to wire-mesh schurzen (drahtgeflechteschurzen or "Thoma-schilde") - the lore and photos remain but little detail production specifics emerge from any search. Far as I recollect, my refs don't have the specific details... But... There MAY be someone out there who has some citation as to what exact date some adoption and fitting regulation for switching to drahtgeflechte for the Pz. IV was sent out... The large consensus seems to be sometime in August or Sept 1944. Which I'll wholly accept. As to who was contracted to make these things... And WHEN they started making and shipping the mesh things... And how many were actually installed on tanks... I've been looking for years for that to surface! As we all know, lots of such commercial records were lost. But it's a sure thing that the mesh needed to be bought from someone somewhere outside of Nibelungwerke and assembled somewhere, and by later 1944, sourcing and shipping that stuff no doubt was sporadic and less of a priority than other more-important parts and supplies, so it is a pretty reasonable expectation that none were on hand waiting for the install order to come down, and little or none arrived at Nibelungenwerke within the next couple - 3 months after that order. Wartime photos do show that some J did have these as early as November 1944, so we are sure that some did get installed by then! But then, there are photos showing J that had no racks nor schurzen of any kind, too! All that given; I remain wholly confident that many J - maybe more than half of all made, never saw mesh schurzen. But that is just my reasoned conclusion given what we do know.

Anyway, It's a key interest of mine as well! And I'm always hoping that someone out there will bring some solid new information to light on this subject!

Bob

Osprey `Pz kpfw IV Ausf G H and J `, by Jentz and Doyle mentions the following data.

Drahtgeflechteten Schurzen ordered from september 44
Reinforced turret ventilator cover ordered from july 44
Zimmerit dropped from september 44

Here´s a view of the reinforced turret fan cover
http://www.andreaslarka.net/ps221005/ps221005.html

The hull plates were 5mm, turret 8mm. Multiply by your chosen scale to give the scale thickness, so 5 x 1/35 = 0.14mm, for example. That's a bit thicker than 5 thou.