Tank Park - Full!

I completed all six of those cheap plastic snap-together tanks. Here they all are, with a proper-scaled 1/72 King Tiger and two 1/72 scale Wehrmacht soldiers for comparison.

Here they are:

Back row, left to right: Sturmtiger, Sturmpanzer, (proper-scaled) King Tiger.
Front row, left to right: Jagdpanzer IV/70, Tiger, Panther, Stug IV.

And here, for scale issue comparison, is a King Tiger heavy tank being dwarfed by a Tiger heavy tank and matched by a Panther medium tank.

Overall, they're fine. They lack details shown in the pictures (or on the actual tanks, such as the different barrel on the Sturmtiger). They weren't all that easy to assemble. They're nice enough, though, and I will probably mess around with them just for fun.

The model choices are interesting. The Jadgpanzer IV/70 isn't one of those famous and exciting AFVs, but it was an effective and workmanlike antitank weapon. I'm a big Stug fan, because I think they're a very effective vehicle and visually appealing. The Tiger and Panther are ones I own in multiple forms - hard plastic, soft plastic, and now these guys. The Sturmpanzer, as I've said, is a personal favorite even if its use was relatively limited. The Sturmtiger is a total waste. Fun to assemble and look at, but in reality, junk - and seriously, they made 18 of them. 18 other people could buy these kits and we'd have more Sturmtiger models than there were Sturmtigers. Also, they were inaccurate, slow, mechnically unreliable, and ineffective in actual use except - maybe! - one took out a bunch of Shermans with a very lucky hit from its 380mm rocket-mortar. Junk.

Glad I got these and made them.

Sturmpanzer 43 - Complete

I finished the Sturmpanzer IV. In about 20 minutes.

Praise:

- it's easy to assemble. No glue, just time and some trimming here and there, and the visual-only instructions are very clear. Much more than those of my Tiger II were, honestly.

- it's solid. You assemble the hull out of blocks, so it's a solid bit of plastic not a hollow shell. So it feels sturdy.

- it's inexpensive. Roughly $6.


Criticisms:

- It's a bit big - I didn't take a side-by-side picture, but it's significantly taller than my 1/72 scale Tiger II. In reality, the Sturmpanzer IV is only 2.52 meters tall versus the Tiger II's 3.09 meters.

- There are gaps in the superstructure for a gun shield, gun, hatch, etc. - but they aren't included.

- Again, scale - it really looms too large with 1/76 scale - HO Scale or 20mm - figures. I don't have any 28mm WWII guys to stand next to it but they'd probably fit a lot better.


So into the box of tanks for . . . whatever it is I plan to do with them! I'm very happy to have it, though. Next . . . not sure - Tiger I? Sturmtiger? Panther?

Sturmpanzer 43 - just getting started

So I did get those tank models I mentioned the other day.

I'm going to start by trying to assemble the so-called "Brummbar" - aka Sturmpanzer 43 Sd.Kfz 166. I think it is thanks to playing Steel Panthers I back in the day, but I really like the heavy-gun carrying infantry support vehicles. The SiG33 with a 150mm gun and the Sturmpanzer 43 especially.

Oho, according to the description the package, "It was used at the Battles of Kursk, Anzio, Normandy, and was deployed in the Warsaw Uprising." Yeah, "deployed." Seems kind of euphemistic in that sentence. Deployed to shoot at Polish resistance fighters with 150mm shot at close range, clearly.

I think this vehicle looks especially like a cousin of a Mark III Ogre, especially with a central ball-mounted cannon.

It'll look something like this in the end, I hope:

Oddball Sherman: It Begins . . .

The assembly begins . . .



Looks like one tread is bent, though. Is there a way to bend resin? I'll have to find out or email Warlord games.

All for the love of sunshine: Oddball's Tank in miniature

As a huge fan of Kelly's Heroes, you know I love this:



That's Oddball and his tank crew - Turk, Moriarty, his driver, and the man himself. The mini includes:

- all of their extra gear strapped to the tank;

- their barrel lengthener to give the enemy the impression they've got a 90mm instead of a 75mm;

- and the loudspeaker for playing soothing music, such as this:



Love this.

Now I need to dig up my copy of GURPS WWII and stat up a modified Sherman for Oddball's crew to drive. They've got the fastest engines in the European Theater of Operations, forwards or backwards. That's got to be worth a full variant write-up . . .

Tanks & Historical Battles on YouTube

I'm steadily running through some video series on YouTube, mostly brushing up on history or just enjoying myself hearing things I mostly already know.

This blog is mainly about RPGs, but it has a small but important sideline of talking about tanks. If you want a good tour of tanks, weird and famous alike, check out the "tank chats" from The Tank Museum in the UK.

It starts with #1 and the A-13 Cruiser, and they start out very short. As they go on they generally get a bit longer, which I like.

You can skip right to the Tiger I, featuring that Tiger you saw decapitate some poor schmuck in Fury, but then you'd miss total freakshows like the Praying Mantis or a tank with a searchlight for a main "armament." I'd love to see more details on the hows and wherefores, but what they do is quite good.



If historical battles are more your speed, BazBattles has a nice series. I'm a bit unsure of his pronunciation, after seeing his Sengoku Jidai series. "Imagawa" is "Ee-mah-gah-wah" not "Ee-MAH-goo-ah" so I'm not sure the others are any better. But it's helpful to have a visualization of battles even if it's a reasonable guess not a certain depiction.


It's enjoyable stuff. I figured I'd pass it one since it's what's occupying part of my time that I spend not blogging.

Unearthing sunken tanks from marshes

This falls under my interest in WWII tanks, and my tendency to make my gamers put their PCs into nasty, miserable marshes:

The Salvagers Who Raise World War Two Tanks From the Dead

How are the places they look?

Awful.

"“It is easy to hunt when you are shown a definite point,” says Mikalutski. “But to get to the point you may have to go five kilometres through marshes or snow. You reach the place and then you have to crawl back...”

For the sake of their own safety, the tank hunters never go into the marshes alone."

Winter, it's been -33 C.

Summer? "“What a buzz it is at night. It seems mosquitoes will overturn the van.”

Insect repellents do not help in marshes. The conditions are extremely difficult in hot weather: they have to work in thick jackets and hats even when it is 30C because of clouds of insects."

And that's in a normal, Earth marsh. No monsters, no mutants, not even an enemy army. Add those and you get ADVENTURE!

For loot, note how well-preserved some of these things are - still-edible chocolate, untouched textbooks, etc. It's not unreasonable for PCs to have to unearth something from a nasty marsh in either the peak of summer or the depths of winter, dealing with natural hazards on top of whatever threats surround the long-buried and lost loot . . . it need not even be a tank. If you insist.

Some Tank Model Irony

So I was taking a look at some tank models, because I'd really like to make a "Hetzer" - a Jagdpanzer 38.

The irony?

It's twice as much over on Amazon.com for a 1:72 "Hetzer" model as for a 1:72 Panther model. Actually, 3x as much but it's closer to 2x once you factor in shipping.

For those of you who just blink and shrug:

Hetzer: Basically a late-war German assault gun built on the chassis of the Czech 38t tank, which was obselete by that point. No turret, more armor, excellent gun, and a low profile made it a great ambush vehicle. Cheap, too.

Panther: A high-end complex tank design equipped with all the bells and whistles of a late-war tank model.

Scale Matters. Or, why Vryce doesn't fear my Ogres

This is a throwaway post for all of the "use your Ogre minis against the PCs!" folks.

Yeah, maybe for a Gulliver's Travels session:

First JS-2 assembled

I finished one of my JS-2 tanks today while watching something work-related.

Overall:

- not a lot of flash, but lots and lots of sprue marks to file off.

- I had to cut some of the interior road wheels to make them fit.

- Instructions are mostly clear in retrospect than on first pass.

- Molding is fairly rough.


This isn't terrible for a Soviet tank, though - it does seem appropriately rough but strong. I'll be much more ready to deal with the annoyances on my second tank. Still, I paid about half as much for this tank and that might be showing in the roughness of the model.

Here it is.

Pegasus JS-2 tanks

So I had a whole bunch of gift cards with tiny, random amounts of money on them. I recently found out Amazon.com will let you buy Amazon.com gift cards for yourself using other gift cards, from 0.50 and up. So I emptied all of my cards, and with some of the proceeds I picked up this:



I was looking at these for a while, because it's such a good deal for two tanks. They also fit the time period of the other vehicles I have assembled - '43-'45.

One thing that surprised me was the hard plastic molded one-piece tracks. I'm not sure how I'll cleanly get the cut marks off the tracks where I had to clip them from the sprues. But I will manage somehow - a file will do, it's just not going to look as nice as soft plastic tracks can.

I'm going to start putting these guys together ASAP. I figure the best way to go is do them line style - one step at a time, alternating tanks. Once I get them together, I'll take some pictures and review the models as a whole.

I actually think the JS-3 (which didn't see WWII service) is a much cooler looking tank - it's that first tank that looks like the later T-64/T-80 tanks. But they had these, and I do like the JS-2.

Tiger II kit, 1/72

Although this is mostly a fantasy gaming blog, model tanks and painting the same are gaming to me - and this is primarily a gaming blog. And a little while back, I mentioned I was looking for a nice King Tiger tank model.

So I did find a King Tiger after all.

Apropos Nothing: 1/72 Scale Tanks

Recently, I've been poking around looking at some WWII tank models. Mostly German, because I think their tanks are interesting and cool. But also some moderns (the T-90) and Allied (I do kind of need a Sherman.)

As far as I can tell, I already have:

(All in 1:72)
- two soft plastic Tiger Is from some unknown manufacturer. I had a T-34A from the same company, but lost about half the bits over the years.
- two hard plastic Tiger Is (one Airfix, one ESCI)
- two hard plastic Panthers (one Airfix, one ESCI)
- one Elefant (ESCI)

I even have a 1:35 scale Tiger I that I purchased because I couldn't find a production-turret Tiger II model. It's unassembled because, well, where I am going to put a 1:35 scale Tiger I? If I finish it, it'll be a dust magnet and need to be stored in a box. No display case here, or space for one. So that's been sitting around so long I can't remember where I got it. I can tell you I got one of the Panthers and the Elefant in Venice, Italy, so technically those are souvenirs.

I keep thinking I need a Panzer IV, because they're also a visually interesting tank. And a Tiger II, because I think they are really cool looking. I always was happy having a Pak40 7.5cm AT gun in whatever video game or board war game I was playing,

But "need" is a tricky word. It's more like "want." I don't even play any games that would use these, but I tell myself I would if I just got a few more models. It's probably a lie - I bought and played with 1/72 scale soldiers endlessly as a kid, and I have a few surviving guys who somehow didn't get lost in the dirt of my backyard when it got too dark to pick them up - mostly Gurkhas, a few German, US, and British paras, and some odder types (Russian winter infantry, Napoleonic Highlanders, and Australian commandos). If any part of me is reclaiming lost kid-dom, it's the part that say, geez, you need a Tiger II. And a Pak40. And a Stug would be nice. Maybe a couple of T-34s to face them off against?

All that said, I'd jump on a good Tiger II model. If only to stash it in the box with the others, until I have a place to put these guys once they're assembled . . .