Thanks gentlemen.
Cheers and success!
Kalin

Here is my entry, Trumpeter 1/35 12.8cm Sf.L61 (pz.SfV) Sturer Emil.

Nice choice, Lap Man! I have this kit in my stash waiting to be built. I'll be looking forward to see yours come together.

Yes me too. This was my second option for the build.

Hey everybody,

Great work all around! Since I‘ve been distracted by work and other campaigns, I haven‘t been able to check in much, so I‘ll just limit myself to commenting on a couple of builds here, which in no way means that the others aren‘t excellent:

Rodolfo, great vignette, nice figures, the faces convey some emotion, not an easy thing to do.

Martin, nice progress on your cycle, it seems to be demanding lots of precision work. Good job.

Mark, that‘s a superlative Panzer III F1!

Jerry

As far as my own build is concerned, here goes - sorry that the following post is so long, but I feel I should explain my situation:

I seem to have run into kind of a motivational problem with my Panzer III J. The kit, which I put together a couple of months ago except for the wheels/tracks/storage, went together very well and was a lot of fun to build until I got to the L/60 gun barrel. It turned out to be something between that and the short-barrelled L/42:







What you see here is actually a replacement barrel from Aber (35L-31), that very unfortunately reproduces the length of the original DML barrel, which is all of 8mm short (!) I tried to use Aber‘s replacement barrel for the Tamiya kit (35L-33), which is the correct length for the long-barrelled Panzer IIIs, but that entailed cutting plastic out of the housing for the gun assembly so it would fit because the Tamiya has a totally different main gun assembly and the metal barrel was too thick. The parts affected are in steps 16 and 17:



Unfortunately, there was no way I could do this without destroying the parts D20 and D7 in step 17 - which I actually did since I had spare parts from another Dragon Panzer III up my sleeve. Since that didn’t work, though, I swallowed hard and rebuilt the assembly with the proper but too-short Aber barrel, thinking that if I set it aside for a few weeks while I finished builds for my other campaigns, I would get used to the fact that the main gun is glaringly, painfully short.

But to make a long story short, I haven‘t, and am in no mood to finish this kit at the moment because this really bugs me.

What I would propose instead, Gazza, if you‘re okay with it, is that I have this STZ T-34/76, which I wanted to finish as a Soviet vehicle without the Panzer III storage bin:



Its hull is partly finished - suspension, wheels, hull halves glued together, but little else - and I could finish it for this campaign. Since I‘m away on vacation for another ten days, I can‘t post any pictures of that build, but would as soon as I get home.

Jerry

Hi Jerry,
I'm cool with it! Enjoy the rest of your vacation.

Gaz

Thanks, Gaz!

Aloha All,

Too many great builds to mention individually, so great job all!!

I'm calling my entry done. Tamiya KV-1 in 1/48th scale, OOB except for a metal replacement barrel from Aber, I think. Painted mostly with AK's WarGame Series 4BO Russian Green set. I have some Tamiya snow texture floating around somewhere that I intended to use, but I've misplaced it. I wanted to keep it fairly clean and un-marked, thinking it represents a reserve tank following along, so only some road wear.















Gaz, what is the next battle?

Happy Modeling,
Zon

Very nice work, Zon! Congratulations on your completion! Love the paint modulation, it makes the detail show very nicely.

hmmm... next battle.... You know, I haven't even thought of one, yet. I'll have to ruminate on it for a while.

Gaz

Nice Zon. Very nice.

Well a mishap on my MBT build gave me a bit of time to go back to my Marder 2 while I contemplated a fix for my issue. I am at the stage where it is worth taking pics to post. (Yeah Gaz, it has been an on again, off again project hasn't it!) so those in the next few days.

As to a campaign, some food for rumination....:

The Balkans 28 October 1940 – 1 June 1941
Operation Torch 8–16 November 1942
Battle of Anzio 22 January – 5 June 1944
Seigfreid Line 25 August 1944 - 7 March 1945 (The Allied advance into Germany)
Fall Gelb (The German Invasion of the Low Countries - a lot of French tanks and some British ones used by Belgium. You could even say this creeps into the Advance into France up to the retreat at Dunkirk)

Even a 'what if' Unternehmen Seelöwe (Operation Sea Lion) what if there was an actual German invasion of Great Britain?

Pete,
Thanks for the recommendations. Nothing really floats my boat at the moment because some of those are in progress just under different names with only slight variations of theme.

I have been considering a Tank Hunters II as a possibility, though. But with you having two campaigns in the future, I’m in no rush.

Gaz

Gaz and Pete: thank you for the kind words. I'm quite pleased with how this one turned out as well.

Where ever the next one is, I'll make a go of it!

Happy Modeling,
Zon

Hi all,

Here‘s what I‘ve completed so far on my DML STZ T-34:



I thought I had gotten farther than I actually had, since I only finished the running gear before I stopped two years ago. Back then, I was intending to replace just the front and back fenders with etch, but I‘ve decided now to replace all the fenders, which isn‘t too difficult on a T-34, so I can bend ‘em up a bit - progress pics coming soon.

And nice KV, Zon, great color modulation work!

Jerry

JBranca,
I really enjoyed my Dragon T-34. The beauty of the design went well with the crispness of the Dragon parts. I'd really like to see yours done!

Gaz

Hi Gaz,

Thanks for the encouragement. I‘ll be mucking about with photoetch for a few days, and then the rest will go pretty fast, I expect. The kit is going together well and the detail is crisp, like you said.

Jerry

Thank you Jerry! Looking forward to seeing your t-34 with the banged up fenders.

Happy Modeling,
Zon

Changed my build after running into issues on some other builds. Now going with this:



And here I am at this point:



Going to pre-paint a few spots before I start final attachment of the main assemblies and install the gun. Then primer and gray paint. I will likely attempt a whitewash as I have only done one other so far.

Good to see you, Shell! Should be a great build!

Gaz

Very good choice for the campaign, Shell. The construction so far looks great. I look forward to the sequel.
Kalin

Sturer Emil progress update.

Looks great, Lap Man!

A bit of work to keep you busy Jerry. Looking forward to seeing the end result.

And Lap Man that is really coming together very well.

12.8cm Selbstfahrlafette L/61 "Sturer Emil" finished.

Excellent Lapman, you pulled off the Panzer grey well without making it overly light like most people do.