Book Review: M2/M3, ed. Robert Jackson (Land Craft, 2)

After the disappointments I mention in my review of the previous publication on the Jeep, it's great to be able to report that this, the second in the new Land Craft series, is back on track (boom-boom!). 

This iteration of these very useful publications follows the standard form - Design & Development, In Detail, Variants, Camouflage & Markings (aka 'colour profiles'), Model Showcase, Modelling Products, In Service & In Action - covering each aspect with a good balance of clarity and thoroughness. 

The archival and contemporary images are superbly chosen, conveying maximum info with great concision, and the colour profiles are excellent, and include front, back, side and plan elevations, for maximum coverage. The difference in quality between the rather poor illustrations of the Jeep in the previous title, and these - crisply detailed, terrifically coloured, and with nicely rendered shading/texturing - is very noticeable.

M3 mounting 75mm gun, Sicily, (1943?)

Whilst no 1/72 examples are included in the Model Showcase section - they're all 1/35, with the lone exception of one 1/16 example - they're much better covered in the Modelling Products segment, with mention made of PSC, the Italeri fast-build kits, Hasegawa and Academy kits. The old Airfix 1/76 is there as well. And they even cover the large range from Milicast, also in 1/76, a manufacturer I haven't seen mentioned in this section until now.

As is normal for me now, when I enjoy these books as much as I've enjoyed this one, I feel more than a little tempted to acquire a model or three and have a crack at building and detailing them, using the images herein as inspiration. Uh-oh... I can feel a trip to either the Ely model shop or Creative Models in Chatteris coming on!

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Thanks to the middle of the black and white photos on the cover, of an M3 ambulance, I fancy making up one kit as this vehicle, as well as some more typical variants. So I tried to find that very photo, but couldn't. I did however find the following:

Possibly taken at the same photo-shoot as the image I can't find?

An example in context.

A contemporary survivor.

Looks fab!

Kit Build/Review: 1/72 PSC German Trucks

Although they're very basic, I do really like these PSC kits. Sure, they're not exhibition quality. But that's not the idea. They're simple, robust wargame models. And they do the job superbly, in my view. I already plundered this box to help me finish my Zebrano Einheitsdiesel, covered in the previous post. 

Now, with the remainder of the contents of the box sitting about getting in my way, I figured why not start building them? Well, one argument against would be the enormous backlog of unfinished models that's accumulating on my workbench. But, ah, the feck wi' it, as they might say on Craggy Island. 

Painting the interior of the cab, and the figures.

I've decided to make the first one up as a Mercedes, as I already have a few Opel Blitz models built. I'm really loving working on rear-echelon materiel. Today I've put most of the truck together, and painted the inside of the cab and the two figures, albeit the latter is a quite basic paint job.

Teresa watched a godawful sci-if movie as I beavered away. I then watched another, sort of, whilst working on my models. The one Teresa watched was called The Predator, or poss Predator II, but didn't seem all that related to the original Arnie movie. I didn't find out what my one was till the very end, Extinction. Although I didn't pay it close attention, it seemed alright to me. Certainly a lot better than the Predator one.

Tigger's not interested or impressed!

Tiggy remained unmoved by Sci-Fi horror, or my modelmaking efforts! Now I'm chilling with snooker on YouTube, and getting ready to climb the wooden hill to Bedfordshire. Tomorrow we visit Patrick on his boat. But I hope to get some modelling in as well.

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The next day...

I have three German trucks at present: Airfix, Zebrano and PSC.

Sunday evening we got back from visiting our pal Patrick, on his narrowboat. I assembled the painted interior and figures for the cab of the PSC Opel Blitz truck, at right in the above picture. At left is an Airfix Opel Blitz, from the set that also includes a Pak-40 gun and crew. And in the middle is my recent Einheitsdiesel with Flak-37.

I have two more unbuilt PSC trucks, and numerous others in the pending pile, including several ambulances, a fuel tanker, and a whole heap of various staff cars. I also harbour a strong desire to scratch-build a few trucks (some partially, using the PSC left-overs, etc, some completely), using resources like the Nuts And Bolts [1] title, issue 32, on German 6-ton lorries, and other reference materials.

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NOTES:

[1] You can find the complete inventory of Nuts & Bolts titles here.

Misc: Tank Museum Tank Chats, Pz III, Inspiration, etc.

On my workbench at present I have a couple of PSC Pz III models. I decided they needed doing as they were out of their box (one having been built some while back), just generally getting in the way. Rather than keep moving them around, I thought why not build the buggers?

After a late night sesh gluin' them together, I dug out all my similar looking models from my display shelving. I have what I believe is an old Fujimi kit, which I've built with lots of open hatches, partly on account of it having pretty cool internal detailing (rare in this scale), the rest are far more basic Armourfast or PSC kits. What I realised was that I can't actually tell, at a glance, which are Pz III or IV, let alone which variants each might be.

My production line of Pz III, Pz IV and sundry other tanks.

Quite by accident, whilst relaxing watching some snooker on YouTube, I saw a link to a Tank Museum Tank Chat on the Pz III (see above). Even more serendipitously, I'd chosen to do mine as Ausf L, which happens to be the very version curator David Willey stands in front of in the Bovington museum, whilst delivering his superb sermon. 

Willey says in the Tank Chat that the Pz III and IV were so similar, many wonder why the Germans bothered making two different tanks that were so alike. That made me feel a little less like a dunce for not knowing which is which. I decided to go through all my models and work out what was what. Turns out I only have two Pz IV, the rest being various Pz III variants.

I started working on a spare turret. Drilled out the turret hole.

Also cut out the doors, and fabricated new ones, to have open.

The PSC kits are great 'cause they have beacoup de bits, allowing you to build numerous variants. These can go in the spares box, for potential use in other builds. It was too late to use them in these builds, as I've already made these models. But I've decided to prepare a turret in a manner akin to the Bovington Pz III, Ausf L, only with numerous hatches open.

Hatches glued on, MG42 and commander at the ready.

In the picture above the two strange circles with sticks attached are two layers of plastic card glued together, and then stuck on the end of a thick bit of sprue. I can then chuck these up in a drill, and sand them into circular cupola components, by running the drill in one hand, and applying sandpaper to the discs with the other. They actually started out square. I cut them down a bit with the trusty scalpel. But, as shown above, they've already been sanded to close to the final size.

Also visible are an MG42 and mount. I had to remove the bipod stand from the front of the MG barrel. A second unaltered MG42 is visible above, as is the cupola MG-mount. The tanks own internal MGs were MG34s. Pictured below are some of the cupola components, such as the circular bit I crafted from a double layer of plastic card, using a drill and sandpaper. I also cut away the ring on the open cupola/hatch component from the kit (an unedited version is shown nearby for comparison).

No spare/complete cupolas, so I had to partially scratch-build one.

Fabricating the bottom of the turret, with a paper template.

Everything thus far glued together. 

I've enjoyed making this new Pz III turret. It'll await another model of the tank itself. I still need to add the little triangular plates at the lower front of the turret. And I may also want to further sand down the flammpanzer barrel that I've already sanded down a fair bit to turn it into an ordinary 50mm gun.

This post is also about inspiration and information. As well as David Willey's excellent video on the Pz III, I also watched and thoroughly enjoyed a similar presentation by Lindybiege, also filmed in front of the Bovington Pz III, Ausf L. Both these videos informed and inspired me, re the modelling work I've been engaged in.

Thanks to the videos and other research for these Pz III models I now also know an easy way to tell if a tank's a Pz III or IV at a glance: the Pz III has six sets of road wheels, and the Pz IV eight. And to finish, a final thought re my turret conversion... the commander figure is a bit Wallace-ish, as in a Wallace and Gromit, with his fat arms and oversized mitts. I may attempt to slim him down a little bit.

But that's all for tonight... time for bed!

Kit Review: 1/72 PSC RSO, #1

The more I build PSC stuff, the more I like it. At least that was true this evening... when I made the first of the two RSO included in this box. There are also Pak 40 guns, and enough variant pieces to build three different types of the RSO.

My favourite variant is the rounded cab - as opposed to the more boxy angular cab variety, or the various other oddities, such as the mounted guns or the semi-aquatic version - so that's what I've built. I now have three RSO vehicles of this type, two in 1/72 (this PSC one, and an Ace one I built some time ago),  and one in 1/76 (by Milicast).

Cutting out the windows. The plastic is pretty thick in the doors!

Adding some very basic interior detailing.

In some respects this is my favourite so far: the component parts are all ultra-chunky, clean, and easy to assemble. The only major downers are lack of detail, and - worst of all in my view - the solid filled-in windows. 

This last I couldn't stomach. So I had to cut them all out, and add clear-plastic 'glass'. The end result of this has deformed the framing of the cab around the front of the doors, which is a shame. But I think the cabs look so much better for it. Of course it meant having to scratch-build some interior detail. But I quite enjoy that kind of malarkey.

Slopping on the paint... brush style...

Looks a little better after a second coat.

Having scratch-built cabin interior detailing, which I kept to a very bare and basic minimum, and added windows, I opted to hand paint the interior, in a vaguely elfenbein colour, as my airbrush is still dismantled, awaiting cleaning and reassembly.

A little bit of paintwork detailing.

And just seconds later, the whole vehicle... boom!

And finally, I assembled the rest of the kit, opting for the sides that are shown holding some kind of wide (winter?) track-links. I'll probably add some tools and a jack to the model, and then get the outer paint up to the same level of readiness as my other two RSOs. 

I'm still having trouble locating appropriate decals for this particular type of vehicle. So if anyone reading this knows of where they can be got, please leave a comment. Balkenkreuz and number-plates are fine. What I need are the circular Steyr logo, and the stencilled rectangle with vehicle stats, both of which, when they appear, are usually found on the vehicles doors.

I like the stowed tracks, and the exhaust pipe.

You can just about glimpse some of the interior.

So that's how she's looking at the close of festivities today. Incidentally my first spot of modelling since being laid low with a cold: spent the rest of the last week in bed. The upside of the illness was that I got to watch both Band of Brothers and The Pacific again, in their glorious entirety. Every cloud has a silver earring, as Count Arthur Strong might say!

Pictured below, my growing collection of mini RSOs. The Ace one is the most/best detailed, with the Milicast one a close second on that front. But the Milicast model was infuriatingly fiddly, with ill-fitting parts, and I hate gluing models that require super-glue, as I find it a right pain in the behind. 

Joining the ranks awaiting the paint workshop crew.

The Ace model was also troublesome, build-wise. In both instances, Ace and Milicast, fit left a lot to be desired in many places. The Ace kit also had photo-etched tracks, which, whilst they seemed fab in some ways - individually toothed metal tracks in 1/72! Cool, or so I initially thought - were a nightmare to work with. Plus I put them on facing the wrong way... doh!

I'm hoping that with RSO #2 from this PSC kit, I'll do the windows better, and not deform the cab so much. Not sure if I might also do the fourth and final one with the boxy cab... Hmmm!? Choices! I think I'll also add frame supports for the tarpaulin to this one. But I might just have the cover off, or rolled up or back, so as to stick some stowage in the rear cargo bed.