Hi,

I've seen photos and models of Stug's with all sorts of gear on the back.

Some show Stug's with "metal brackets" holding the gear on. How would one make these - I assume out of plastic card, but how exactly.

Or could the gear just be tied on by rope?

Does one use cotton or string for rope?

Kind regards
Digger

If it's the bracket, then you can use lots of the PE set which includes tool brackets/clamps that you can fold. and for many of those baskets were fashioned in the fields, I don't recall that it's a standard on board accessory that was done in the factory. So I will presume that you can build it anyway you want. You can use plastic card to replicate bolted basket, or use copper wire to immitate welded basket such as the on on the Marder III.

As far as the rope goes, I am sure some point on the war, a couple Stug crews had used ropes to secure things on the vehicle.

Comes to the Stugs, the only limitation is your imagination. #:-) :-)

Brackets eh?

As far as i can tell you can make what you want. They were welded or rivited. On one pic I have two of the verticle supports were extended and some track was hung on them through the open guides, looked like a nice touch. In the early years the rear was covered with the swastika flag, this hid quite a bit of the stowage.

As for ropes and tie downs, I use cotton, or thin srting. Would like to see some pics of your model when finished, you can post them here at armorama.

Cheers,

Scott

I've seen photo's of Stugs with all sorts of kit on the back. Crews would stick whatever kit on they could carry and most would be tied on (a practice still quite common nowadays). In one picture of seen one crew even had a spare powerpack on the reardecks in a crate. Other common things were barrels and cans of fuel,boxes of sparesand logs for unditching the vehicle.
I've done a stug and as well as utilizing the deck space I've stowed equipment in the gap between the side plates and the hull. Have fun, as I know from exercises if you want to take it you'll find a space for it!

Robbo

I'm pretty sure I know what you mean about the "metal brackets". Check the picture below to see if the rack on the back is what you mean. If so I would make those out of thin plastic card or the left over frets from a PE set (plastic card would be much easier though). I would look for a good line drawing in one of the many excellent StuG books out there to get the exact dimensions and then cut the appropriate lengths of plastic card and glue it all together. That should be a pretty simple scratch-building exercise.

Thanks for the tips - they are most helpful

Cheers
Digger