"Greetings from the eastern front"

StuG III, Ausf G (autumn 1943, assault gun of the commander of StuGAbt 191, Cpt Alfred MUELLER)

Modells: George Schachinger
Photos: Wolfram Bradac
Photos in progress: George Schachinger

History

Finally I could fulfill myself the desire to build an assault gun III after this type of vehicles had always fascinated me. Their threat to opposing tanks became a legend, just like their assistance to relief the pressed infantry in last minute-actions. They destroyed more enemy tanks, than all German battle tanks together. There were Russian orders to avoid the fight with assault guns. Fourteen soldiers of the assault artillery were awarded the oak leaves to the knight cross, as was Hptm Alfred MUELLER, the commander of the StuG Abteilung 191 for its earnings during the fight for the Kuban bridgehead. By destroying 150 enemy tanks within a few days his battalion 191 (=Abteilung, renamed as a brigade, from 28.02 1944 onwards) secured the evacuation of the Germans to the Crimean peninsula. Some time after the promotion to major, Hptm Mueller was shifted to the assault artillery school in BURG (Germany), where he could pass his rich experience on the class participants. He experienced the end of war as a lieutenant colonel.
Postcard

Kits and materials

TAMIYA: StuG III, German engine tank crew set.
AIRES: transmission for StuG III
DES kit: driver for Sd Kfz 251, changed as a mechanic on the gunners place of the StuG III
VERLINDEN: assorted heads, barrels
ABER: thumbscrews, mounting plates,
ITALERI: cans, field tool shop (Nr.: 419)
DRAGON: Single link tracks early Ausf. for Pz III/IV

The scenario

I built the StuG III with interior arrangement, in order to represent a workshop scene. Various battle damage and wear require a repair. A defective torsion bar and a driven off road wheel are to be exchanged. Extensive checks are executed at the cannon. Hptm Mueller takes the chance of a battle break, to look after the workshop crew, while they deal with his vehicle.

The construction of the StuG III

Interior arrangement

I did not want to spend a fortune for a stock interior kit. So I decided for the partial self-construction. Except the steering gear and driver station, everything else resulted from "scratching ". The resin parts of the AIRES-kit are manufactured very fine, but the steering shaft axle, which leads to the steering brakes do not fit exactly into the hull. Extending the steering linkage and sanding down the left brake drum on the upper side provided remedy.

The cannon was assembled by means of resin blocks (breach ring and -block), plastic and metal tubes (recoil- and counter recoil mechanism), plastic sheet, wire, two compound putty and lead foil (waste shell chute, recoil guard, gunners seat), plastic- and metal rods, resp. -profiles (gun mount, sighting and aiming equipment). The purchase of a metal tube instead of the 7.5 cm cannon of the kit can saved, when one does a careful sanding job. I sealed the joint between the two cannon halves with instant adhesive and after draining I clamped the pipe into a mini drill. With sized-00 steel wool and a soft rag, soaked in toothpaste, the joint was polished at slow speed. The result is a completely seamless gun barrel.

The radios, one " 10 Watt VHF transmitter-c " and " 10 Watt VHF receiver-e ", as well as a " 30 Watt MW receiver-c"und " a 30 Watt MW transmitter " were designed by means of plastic- and metal- sheet, stretched and deformed sprues. The hose of the crew area heating (attached in assault guns, starting from 1942) was built with steel wire, twisted round an isolated electric wire. I manufactured the faired exit at the hose connector from soldered metal tubes. Plastic card served for the construction for the ammunition racks, the drive shaft tunnel and the crew compartment lining. I tinkered the grating of the ventilator from a spare resin piece, which was re-designed into a basked shape by means of a mini drill, again used as a turning lathe. Then I bored the holes and afterwards I scooped out this part from the rear. A plastic ring with " screws " from cut off stretched sprue serves as mount for the rear wall of the crew compartment. (This construction costed more than 8 hours after several futile attempts to build an exhaust basket by means of copper braids!)

The MG 34 was cut, starting from the cooling jacket. I replaced this part with an aluminium sheet metal, which was perforated several times with a needle and afterwards formed to a tube around a hypodermic needle. The profile of the floor covering was "poured ": Plastic rods are inserted into Nitro thinner for some days. The resulting plastic mash must be poured very thinly onto a slightly oiled (optional!) photo etched disk with appropriate pattern. After 1-2 days (try!) the thin foil can be removed carefully with the help of a crafts knife. Then it can be cut to size and fixed with white glue onto a plastic sheet (other adhesives loosen the foil too easily). Thus one single photo etched disk lasts a whole amateur craftsman´s life! All hooks and mountings for the accessories developed from aluminium foil. Screws and rivets were either made out of stretched sprues or with the highly recommendable " Punch and die" -set of the "Historex-Agency". I manufactured the current- and radio wiring with copper- and steel wire, as well as a full rubber hose (accessories for tilers).

External construction

The kit from Tamiya does represent a StuG III Ausf G in one early version, but not the first ones, that were fielded. What were the differences between the kit and the first version? Here follows the features of the first "G"-version, which came to the units in the end of 1942:

a driver observation slit left of his station,
steeper angles of the lateral structure front armoring,
no MG shield,
no periscope protection at the roof,
the fan installed onto the center of the roof instead at the middle of rear wall of the fighting compartment
a " driver vision port ,type 50' ", as well as the view holes for the driver telescope above it, therefore also,
a divided additional armor in front of the driver workstation and
no " mushrooms " as mounts for the auxiliary crane at the top of the roof.

Since my vehicle should however represent a version, used in autumn ´43, I assembled the following features:

MG shield (fielded starting from December 1942),
screwed on additional armor at the bow plates and in front of the driver-, resp. loaders area (produced by the companies from ´42 to partly [MIAG-company] October ´43),
early version of the tracks without grab lugs (manufactured to end of ´43)

I removed kit items or did not represent:

the " mushrooms " at the hull roof (only built from ´44 onwards)
the side skirts (manufactured for new vehicles starting from April ´43, delivered to the units as tool kit in June ´43, with priority to those, which were involved in the Kursk offensive),
the smoke grenade launchers (production from February to May ´43, then removed because of self-endangerment),
the deflector ramps for the chain pins protection (only generally introduced, starting from ´44 as a company-supply

I completed or improved:

a pistol plug left of the driver (starting from December ´42, TAMIYA forgot this plug!)
the mounts of the blackout drive light (aluminium sheet and copper braid),
the brackets for tools and equipment
(aluminum sheet and -foil, photo etched parts from ABER),
hatches (partly made new from plastic sheet, wire and the nuts/bolts by the "Punch and die" set),
aerials inclusive their mounting plates (hypodermic needles, steel wire, fishing rod wire, aluminum sheet),
the asterisk antenna are soldered together wires,
the tail railing (soldered brass),
the screens on the cooling intakes (photo etched part from my spare box), the tow rope (cable wire from a bicycle shop),
the reserve antenna supports (hypodermic needle, plastic strips and aluminum sheet)

I represented engagement damages at the fenders by sanding them down to almost "see through"-thickness and then punctured them with a crafts knife. At the rear I replaced the splash guards by an aluminum sheet, on which the profile, provided by the kit, thinly polished again, was glued. the fire extinguisher (tube of a car antenna, photo etched parts from ABER) Additionally the surface of the armor was prepared this way: loose-handed I let "bounce" a sanding tool, which was attached in a mini drill, across the hull armor plates. So the rough structure of the cast armor is done "en miniature". Be careful, not to overdo this effect. German armor is - compared to other countries´ armor - very smooth! The representation of the suspension-repair required a lowering of the rear chassis section in order to show the sinking of the tank due to the missing assist of two suspension bars. Because of easing the removing of the road wheels, the track was eased by the maintenance crew and is therefore very saggy. A suspension arm was completed with a metal tube, which was polished conical at the end. A second one was drilled out at the front. The same occurred with the two disassembled road wheels. I furnished the resulting holes with a bit of my proven car antenna (one should go walking quite more frequently on scrap iron stations!). The torsion bar was tinkered with a metal tube. I made several cuts into the end, in order to represent the pinion of the adjustment with the suspension arm. Further I shifted the support plates for the back-up rollers behind the tail railing. After approximately 240 hours of work time (approximately 50 of it had unfortunately furnished no useful results for the completion of the StuG III, but only an extension of my quite private vocabulary...), the construction was brought to an end. Now "only" the painting was left to do:

Painting

Admittedly I did not adhere to the rule 30% tinkering, 70% painting, since otherwise this project would have been finished by next year. As so much has already been written about the " correct " painting technique, I can drop exact specification. Only as much: I used the so-called pre-shading-technique, that is applying a base coat of dark brown, followed by spraying a light cover of dark yellow basic tank colour. One should be careful, not to let the darker spots disappear by extensive spraying. Subsequently, I applied several "filters". This is a technique that is intensified up to masterlyness by Miguel Jimenez, a spanish modeler (see Internet-reference for more information). Old and new engagement damages and lacquer wear were represented with micro painting before and after the different filters. Slight drybrushing and applying pastel chalks (usually I scratch across the pastell chalk with a medium hard brush and paint this onto the surface, sometimes I make a mix with scratched pastelpowder and dull varnish) the basic weathering is completed. By means of aluminium colour (Humbrol) and a pencil, used grasps and worn places at the tank surface were obtained. The kill rings developed by means of a spray gun after previous masking.

Dirt at the tracks and the lower hull can be represented very realistically with a mash made out of earth, sand, white glue, food soda, cut off brush bristles, static grass and brown acrylic colour (or at least water-based colour). After drying, this mass was drybrushed with a brighter brown dithering at selected places. A veil strongly diluted drab (70% thinner, 30% colour) sprayed onto the lower vehicle portions concludes painting. Only a sealing with silk matt laquer remains to be done. Nevertheless I forgot to tell you, that still the markings have to be applied in advance! The emblem of the StuG Abt 191 is self made: After scanning it from the booklet " tank colors, part 3 " of Bruce Culver it is scaled down and printed on decal foil with a color laser printer.

The figures

As the figures, that came with the kit were very proper, I used one crew member with changes of arms and corpse for positioning him on the hull top. Because of the use of other arms, than those of the kit, I had to make new seams along the sleeves. This was done with stretched sprue, welded with plastic glue. Before the glue turns hard, I pushed my crafts knive into the "seam", to simulate its irregularity. The commander "lost his head" but immidiately got a new one from VERLINDEN. As my only spare head, that nearly matched the appearence of Hptm Mueller unfortunately showed an SS-skull on the commanders cap, I had to remove this. As a substitute, I made the Wehrmacht-insignia out of TAMIYA-putty. The workshop soldiers from Tamiya were taken almost unchanged: The fingers of the standing maintainance man were slightly bent for a better ergonomic appearance. Furthermore the czech-type overalls, taht were in common use among german workshop crews, had to be upgraded with two back pockets each, which were again made by using aluminium foil. Now switching to the painting of the figures: The flesh areas were done with artist oil colors after grounding them light brown. A drop of glossy varnish onto the eyes gives a realistic shining. As assault gun crews wore grey panzer style uniforms, I featured this as well (a good reference is the book of Schlicht/Angolia, which is mentioned in the appendix). Again I used a mix of washes, filters and drybrushing, as well as airbrushed layers to gain the different shades of sunburned, washed out, worn and "weary" clothings. The leather belts and shoes were primed with black, resp. dark yellow for the officer´s belt and drybrushed with burnt sienna or raw umber. (Tip: the mid-war shoes didn´t have shoe nails on the sole. So don´t paint them!)

The construction of the Diorama:

I wanted to keep the base simple, so I scribed a pattern of concrete plates onto plastic sheet and added a mixture of sand, white glue and plaster in the upper right edge. Before getting hard, some spots were covered with static grass. After attaching white glue with a syringe into the grooves of the concrete plates, I sprinkled them with static grass too. Spattered drops of white glue fixed dispersed sand, in order to represent pressed down dirt spots, left by passing tanks and personnel. Bristles that were cut from a rough brush were used to tinker the "elephant grass". Finally everything was painted with my airbrush. The workshop items came partly from ITALERI, TAMIYA and by myself (many things in the tool box). The canvas plans on the ground and the lift off vehicle roof developed by pressing crumpled aluminium foil onto the surface underneath. It makes convincing folds. The vice, the anvil and other metal parts were primed with aluminium colour, "filtered" with black and polished with graphite dust, scraped from a pencil. Wodden parts were grounded in dark yellow and finished by a highly diluted burnt sienna, as well as raw umber oil colours. Finally the base was framed and got an information sign.

Last but not least:

At the end there are some more impressions from the details and another "old picture" for you to watch. Finally I would like to still mark that this project literally costed me blood, sweat and tears, although however furnished very much fun. Additionally it was a very favorable work, if one considers, that I was busy with only one model more than half a year and I avoided many after market "nice-to-have-but-costly-items" (an interior detail set would have costed approx. USD 53,-!) Only with the tracks it could have been of some advantage to use a product of " Friulmodelissimo"... To everyone, who might think, that I am too slow at tinkering, I would like to give him one slogan from the far east for considering: "the way is the target."

© 2001 Schachinger

Click on the thumbnails to enlarge. Pictures will open in new window.