HÄT 1:72 Panzer III G conversion

Here are some pictures of my current project. I try to build a Bergepanzer III from a HäT Panzer III G. I removed the turret and built a repair platform from scratch. My only sources were this article and some pictures I found via Google.

The materials I used for it are pieces of cardboard, wooden sticks and some parts from the spare box. The crane was built from different plastic parts.

There is still some work to do. I will add some more details to it and will try to modify the tracks with my method of drilling (see here). I will try another modification which I found at this link.

The wooden platform is finished.

Some self-made rivets were attached.

Tools and equipment are still missing.

The crane will get some more details.

20 % Discount at PBtoys.de

Peter, owner of PBtoys (one of the best online shops for 1:72 figures), gives all his customers 20 percent discount on all orders until the 31st january 2010.

He has a big sortiment of figures from different manufacturers like Caesar, Emhar, HÄT, Italeri, Pegasus and many more. In addition the sortiment of Italeri, Pegasus and Armourfast kits is growing on. The prices are very fair and sometimes you can find some rarities in his shops.

Follow THIS LINK to his 1:72 shop and maybe you will find some interesting products. If you like 1:42 figures you can follow THIS LINK to his shop for 1:32 figures and stuff, HERE you can find Elastolin figures, the shop for Britains figures is HERE, and HERE you can find Timpo Toys figures.

You have to order in each shop seperately but all orders from his shops will be sent in one packet, which means that you have to pay only one time the postage.

Update 04/2018
Seems like PBtoys has closed it's gate

1:87 Raupenschlepper Ost Paper Kit By Satoshi Yoshioka

If you mentioned my linklist on the right side of this blog you will find Satoshi Yoshioka's website who designs model kits building from paper. There is a nice sortiment (15+) of downloadable model kits.

I downloaded the kit of the Raupenschlepper Ost as tractor for one of my two artillery batteries. The PDF document contains all parts for two simple models of the RSO on one DIN A4 page. Unfortunally the RSOs are grey colored that I had to modify this kit for my personal use.


This picture shows my first try with the building of paper kits, and I was surprised that the building went only with some minor problems. I changed all grey parts to white that I can paint them with water colors in some camo pattern.

My cmera makes a little trouble that I made only one picture of it. The figures come from the figure set "German Auto Infantry" of Russian producer Mars. They look like they are pirated copies from Matchbox and Airfix, maybe I will do a comparison of this figures in the future.

At the moment I am designing the interior section for the RSO. When it is done I will make it downloadable in order to supply the RSO with some interior equipment. In the next days some more pictures of the paper kits will come.

UPDATE:
I compared the measures of my kit (51 mm lengh) and the measures that I found in the wikipedia (4425 mm lengh). It seems like the model I build is not 1:72. The comparison resulted that the kit is in 1:87 scale, that means that i have to do some conversions on the scale.

If someone of you has an 1:87 or 1:72 model or kit of the RSO, it would be nice if you could post the lengh of it in the comments.

Italeri News 2010

I found this interesting news in the HAT forum and at the homepage of "Henk of Holland".
Italeri will release several new kits this year, but I do not know, if this list is officially confirmed by Italeri. I did not find any of these kits at their official homepage.
This news come from Przemyslaw Sobusik, who is a Polish modeller.
The following kits, and many more, are (inofficially?) announced for 2010:
Dioramas + accessories 1/72:
* 6142 Modular Battleground #1
* 6143 Modular Battleground #2
* 6144 Modular Battleground #3
* 6145 Modular Battleground #4
* 6146 Diorama Accessories #1 Urban Accessories

Fast Assembly 1/72:
* 7514 Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.F1/F2 * 7515 T-34/85
* 7516 Sd.Kfz.251/1 Ausf.D
* 7520 GMC 2,5 Ton Truck

The complete list can be found here.

Odemars/Orion 1:72 Volkssturm Figures 2/2

Here is the rest of my painted Volkssturm figures. I had to finish the last three figures but now I'm a little proud that I painted my first 2 complete sets. Or at least I painted all poses of booth sets. The only thing missing are detailed bases. I was trying how they looked on usual 1 Euro cent coins, but almost the half of them will not fit on it because they are too big.I like most the poses but the armament is some kind of strange. Some figures have a Panzerfaust which is reasonable because it was a cheap weapon which needed not much training to use. But why the heck does the guy with the beard (1st post) carry an Panzerschreck, which was a weapon that needed much more training than the Volkssturm got.
I think that there are too much automatic weapons and the figures personal equipment of them is too good because most Volkssturm units were poorly equipped. More informations about that can be found in the link at the end of this post. Last but not least, here is the comparison between the Volkssturm figures by Orion, Pegasus and Odemars. Compared with the Pegasus figures the figures of Odemars and Orion look like cheap toysoldiers but somehow I like them more than the figures of Pegasus which are very detailed.Basic informations about the Volkssturm can be found in the Wikipedia (German / English) and on the homepage of the "Lexikon der Wehrmacht" homepage following this link.

A Cheap Book About WW2 Armour

Before I will continue the presentation of my painted Volkssturm figures I would like to present an interesting book. I got it last week from ebay and it was cheap, approximately 5 Euros including postage. It contains a lot of pictures (700+) of tanks and some useful informations. Maybe it is not the best book about WW2 tanks, but I think, that the price relationship is good.

A lot of tanks are showed, the main focus is on german tanks, allied and soviet tanks are shown too. The language is German but I think that most of the informations should be able to be translated simply, like for example with babelfish that I also partly use for this blog.


Its a cheap book for beginners, some of the drawings seem like they are based on photos. In my opinion it is a simple but good source for beginners, because it contains many suggestions to painting of models .You can find it at Amazon, sometimes at the German section of ebay and at other book traders.

Jean Restain "Panzer und Kettenfahrzeuge des zweiten Weltkriegs"
ISBN 3828953301

Odemars/Orion 1:72 Volkssturm Figures 1/2

Part one of my Volkssturm Figures made by the russian producers Orion and Odemars. The two lying figures are from the set "No refuge" from B.U.M. and got some weapons and equipment from Preiser.More informations will follow soon with the second part.

Hasegawa 1:72 SDKfz. 7/2 with 37mm Flak 36

This SDKfz. 7/2 with 37mm flak 36 is the fifth kit I finished after I started building models last year. I have a dozen unbuild kits on my desk but I wanted to start with the easier ones. Before that I finished a Panzer II, a Panzer III, a Tiger 2 and a SDkfz. 11 with an 88 Flak.
The kit is built straight from the box, the only things I did were that I drilled the barrel and built some kind of ammo mounting plate. The most figures are Hasgawa, the gunner is some Preiser figure and the figure with the AT mine belongs to ESCI. All was painted with acrylic colors from Citadel, Vallejo and Tamiya.

There a minor things to change. While watching the pictures I mentioned that I forgot to attch the steering wheel and to drybrush the front wheels. Decals and dirt will come in the future, I still have to improve my modelling skills.

Giant 1:72 German Infantry

These figures came with an ebay lot. I had never see figures like them before and had no information about the manufacturer of them. The bases are printed with "Giant" and "Hong Kong". Seems like a first hint.
Their armament consists of German WW2 weapons like MP40, MG34, Panzerschreck and Stielhandgranate. Maybe these guys should be German infantry from world war 2.





I did not know anything about the Giant corporation. Google did. I found this interesting article at the Hät homepage and some other smaller sources which gave me a some information.

This is what I found out: They appear as "World War 2 German infantry" in 10 different poses and were manufactured by the Giant corporation. They are downsized copies of old Marx figures, a picture of it can be found on this homepage. They were made between 1960 and 1970 (found an ebay auction that said 1969) in Hong Kong.




To the conclusion a comparison with figures of other manufacturers:

First row (1:72):
Pegasus Volkssturm, Giant, Esci Paratrooper, Giant, Revell Pioneer, Giant

Second row (1:76):
Matchbox Infantry, Giant, Airfix Afrikakorps, Giant, Matchbox Afrikakorps, Giant, Airfix Infantry

Revell News 2010

I got this great news from Modellversium and Henk of Holland. The Revell company will reissue several old world war 2 kits this year. It is great to read that both ww2 Soviet infantry sets will come back to the market, beginnig with the kit "Siberian Rifleman" (02516) which will come in March. In June the "Soviet Infantry" set (02510) will come back again.

In addition there will come some new world war 2 armour, like for example the reissues of the Panzer III M and the Jagdpanther, and the new kit of the 8,8cm Flak 36 with the Sd.Anh.202 that will be surely better than the old Hasegawa kit which I built last year.
Read more at the official Revell site.