My questions are

i) in reality how common was schurzen and extra turret armour?

ii) more often than not models show the schuurzen with missing plates or with plates at odd angles. Again how common was this?

A couple of schurzen questions for all you Axis armour experts out there.

I am currently building some late war Pz IV and Stug III in 15mm for war gaming. Both have schurzen and the Pz IV has armour around the turret too.

My questions are

i) in reality how common was schurzen and extra turret armour?

ii) more often than not models show the schuurzen with missing plates or with plates at odd angles. Again how common was this?

The reason I ask is if I google image search for models practically every one shows schurzen and usually with missing plates.

But if I google for real archive pictures, most do not have schurzen at all and those that do are in the majority of cases fully intact.

So I'm wondering whether schurzen was really a common thing or whether its use has been exaggerated by the modelling community.

BTW - my questions are probably more applicable to the Stug III, as the Pz IV archive pictures mostly do have schurzen (but fully intact).

Cheers,

Nigel

But if I google for real archive pictures, most do not have schurzen at all and those that do are in the majority of cases fully intact.

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But if I google for real archive pictures, most do not have schurzen at all and those that do are in the majority of cases fully intact.

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I believe your approach is somewhat flawed, as you have to factor in the versions of these vehicles that never carried Schürzen.

Schürzen were introduced a few years into the war, around mid 1943 I believe. At some point, all newly manufactured/ overhauled vehicles of a certain type would carry them.
From the top of my head, Schürzen first appeared with the Panzer III Ausf. M, Panzer IV Ausf. H and StuG III Ausf. G/ StuG 40 respectively.
Schürzen were also retrofitted to earlier types of those vehicles if they were still around long enough.
Hence, if you look at the wrong version of a vehicle / pictures from the wrong time period, you simply can't find any traces of Schürzen.
At some point, they become a must to accurately represent a vehicle. Even in the rare event that a vehicle lost all the Schürzen/ the crew took them off, you still would see the mounting supports.

In a nutshell, Schürzen as a fact certainly aren't overly depicted by modelers (provided it's the correct vehicle version). What probably is being overdone is how often Schürzen are shown as missing/ coming from another vehicle/ being painted in red primer.
Just my "2"cents