Greetings friends! Long time lurker, my first post/comment. Couldn't be more excited for this one, I'm curious about the interior and price, the 250 might be my favorite AFV in general, very interesting to me. A small dio with a few late war grenadiers in zelts will go great with this. Great news!

Does anyone have a definitive history on this one ? From my understanding the only known example is one in a Serbian museum and there's no wartime photos and various opinions as to whether or not it was a wartime example or a post war conversion but I haven't seen anything to support either opinion.

Pretty cool - And I'll get one - "just because its cool" - but perhaps CH has stepped into some uncertain waters with this one... Did this exist as an actual German conversion? The record and evidence for it is, to say the least, very thin. First mention I came across of this rig was when I picked up the AFV Weapons profile #55 (Chamberlain & Doyle, 1973). There is one picture provided therein of this subject, with the following description legend: "5cm PaK mounted on the light semi-tracked personnel carrier Sd.Kfz. 250. Nothing known, believed to be a trials vehicle." That's as much as I heard about this possible AT conversion - from 1973 until just a couple years ago! Now there's at least 1 1/35 styrene kit coming along, and maybe already out a 1/72 kit? Did a Google search on it... found a few more pics. I could not find any technical discussion or verification as to its actual construction, when, where, by whom, nor any mention of dates or location of use. Turns out, on closer examination, all of the pics, including the Profile 55 image, are of that same trophy parked on a concrete museum slab in Belgrade, Serbia. Where it's been from at least before 1970 or so. The paint scheme has been changed over the years. So.. finding several pics of the same questionable and unknown specimen... does not help it's case. It seems at least possible that it could have been a post-war conversion done by Tito's Army or some local forces in what became Jugoslavia? That could at least explain why it would end up parked on a slab in Belgrade. One-time capitol of Jugo, and all that. Or maybe a movie prop. Blah! I'm pretty sure it will sell - it's likely to appeal to lots of "anything German" fans, and maybe to Panzer-46-ers - but maybe really falls into the what-if and possibly sheer fantasy category... Now, if someone could DOCUMENT it's origins... that would be really GREAT (and likely have some of us jump higher and faster!) Bob

Frankly, I don't really care if it was fielded. It's a big gun on a truck and that's good enough for me. Being a white box, I agree that there should be a more substantiating claim as to whether or not it was fielded during WWII. However, this will pander to several builders as simply being a "large gun on a half-truck".

It seems a number were used, and looks like some survived and were used right up until the 1970's. I can't seem to find the exact number built, but a few were capture and used as well. I know I am really interested in it, and will probably will get one. http://www.achtungpanzer.com/leichte-schutzenpanzerwagen-sdkfz250-sfl-5cm-pak38-l60.htm

Yeah I've read that on AchtungPanzer but I've never found any evidence to support it. Either way I don't really care. I love the 250 series and like you say a half track with a gun is a winner all the way.

I'm all with any who think this is a *cool* rig - what's not to like - a small 'track with a biggish gun, the rather sleek and (to me, anyway) "sexy" clean - cut angular look of the 250 neu, or it's shear "it shoulda been if it weren't" concept? I mean, hey! I'll get one a these just because it IS way cool! But I can see the looming consternation at shows as and when this ever tries on the tables... For IPMS shows, I can see some questions about where one places it - there are those who don't want "unverified" things in the "armor" categories (so argue against letting folks put those E-10 and waffentrager things into armor, and relegate them instead to the distant "sci-fi & what-if" tables). And this comes up more often then might be imagined at IPMS shows, although historical accuracy is not really the focus... AMPS shows? Never been to one, but I could easily imagine this thing coming into some contention there, as AMPS is concerned more with historical accuracy than is the IPMS (or so I've been led to understand...). So the evident lack of evidence will come up. As an aside... this rig and it's apparent singular existence in Serbia still do not make a whole lot of sense to me as a "real German conversion", given as 1) the 250 NEU came out from NOV 1943 and front-line demand was pretty high for it, 2) it was relatively uncommon as an available vehicle (so probably few made it to the Balkans, as that area was lower priority and did not receive many newest vehicles), 3) the 5cm PaK 38 was becoming less useful later in the war and there was little formal interest in mounting it on anything, in favor of something more potent (consider the RSO with it's 7.5cm PaK 40), 4) the 250 was actually already a shortened design owing to issues with it's limited power-to-weight ratio and thus limited performance - it had started out as an armored derivation of the small SdKfz 10 track which was then shortened to limit the weight of armor imposed on that small engine and drive-train - adding additional armor to stretch the hull and adding perhaps 1000 pounds of gun, mount and shield seems, well, counter to what had already transpired in the design! 5) the utility for this weapon and arrangement was probably not much for the Germans in the Balkans in 1944 - 45 - anti-tank was not the big need and this gun with it's likely limited mobility and carrier performance offers little value for anti-partisan operations, and 6) unless this was strictly a area shop job, all of these one-off experimental types remained much closer to home, and this one seems that it would have been coopted from the testing ground into Berlin defense or some other last ditch desperation - yet the specimen exists in Serbia. And of course, the lack of any documentation of German construction and use whatsoever still leaves us guessing whether in fact the Germans did this or is the Serbian thing a post-war conversion or ...? All in all, this one still seems a bit more of a jump by CH into the questionable then do the other "1-off" and rare types of things those white boxes usually carry. But I'll gladly admit that it is a cool jump, regardless of it's veracity! Cheers! Bob