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'A gaping silken dragon,/Puffed by the wind, suffices us for God./We, not the City, are the Empire's soul:/A rotten tree lives only in its rind.'

Wednesday 31 October 2012

Family photos...

Giano, over on Pagina di Giano, has a nice habit of presenting models in 'Family shots', where he compares different makes of the same vehicle, for example, Pz IIIs. I like this idea, as it helps to illustrate the sometimes small, sometimes great, scale differences between 1/76 and 1/72, and the range of approaches to the small scale creation of the same vehicle. When I was converting the Airfix Stug III gift from His Excellency Kinch to the Su 76i, I was struck by just how 1/76-ish the Airfix kit from 1962 was (without measuring it, of course), and how big much small scale armour is these days, even for 1/72. Anyway, as I have only made a small amount of progress on the PSC Sdkfz 251s, I thought I would adopt the Giano approach this evening, and do a 'family shot':


Firstly, a Minimi resin version finished for my Panzer Armee Afrika. Reasonably clear lines, no forward mg or mg shield, no anti-aircraft mg or pintel.


Second, a Matchbox Hanomag which I made in 1982. Little in the way of internal detail, but with both mgs, although the AA one has long gone.


Finally, a Frontline Miniatures resin one - rough and ready, but very good value for money, with little internal detail and no mgs.


And, all three. Size wise, they are pretty close. But none came with crew (or did the Matchbox one have a gunner?), or stowage, or extra bits of any kind.

As for the PSC Hanomags, the delay is in the painting of the crew. Dan M has commented on this blog about the PSC kits, pointing out a problem with the platoon commanders PAK38, and directing me to a very good blog from Sweden, to be found here (well worth adding to one's favourites. The header Jagdpanzer IV is fantastic). The Swedish bloggist, Leif, provides a very good review of the PSC Hanomags, but I notice that he says that the crew must be Waffen SS as they are wearing smocks. That doesn't sound right to me, as I thought the pull over smock came in a variety of camouflage and non-camouflage patterns and was worn by all sorts and manners of German. I may be wrong, but I'm going for early marsh pattern smocks on my little fellows, as opposed to pea dot. 

6 comments:

  1. From what I have read the actual camo smocks (not Zeltbahn) were very rare in Heer units. You could probably just about justify them for non-SS Panzergrenadiers eg:

    http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=255301

    BTW another highly detailed review of the PSC 251/Ds can be found on Cristian Florescu's excellent site in case you are interested (he also has a couple of useful comments re the crew):

    http://www.ww2germans.com/index.php/component/content/article/16-reviews/531-plastic-soldier-german-halftrack-sdkfz-251-d-ww2v20006-brf

    Cheers, Dave

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    1. Hi Dave - another excellent link, cheers! The chap at WW2 Gers certainly does detailed kit reviews. I've gone for marsh pattern as I didn't want WSS. There are also some good photos of Heer in smocks in the 1943-45 German Army Osprey.

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  2. Hi! always good to see Hanomags! That makes me think I'm quite short on troop carriers, but I'm planning on buying some very soon. The PSC offering it's quite interesting by the way.
    As for the Matchbox kit, I think it had two figures, one manning the mg and the other jumping off from a side. Quite a nice kit, pity I never had the chance to get one when I was a kid.

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    1. Hi Giano! Yes, one is always short of troop carriers! The PSC offering is excellent value for money - recommended for the wargamer. Yes, I'd forgotten about the jumping out figure. I wonder where he got to in my boxes and bags??

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    2. Once I had a little box of all those figures you get inside model kits, I was too lazy to paint them back then, but now I need them, and I can't find that box anywhere... I guess it's the fate of all modellers!

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    3. Yes! That's it, that's where my jumping out of the Matchbox Hanomag is! It's in a small, blue, thick card box with other forgotten crew figures. But where??? Do we all suffer the same diseases?

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