Zvezda 1:100 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Ausf. B

A closer look at the 1:100 German Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Ausführung B game expansion produced by the Russian modelmaker Zvezda for their "Art Of Tactic" wargame range. This is one of the most iconic ww2 vehicles (beside the Tiger, the Sherman and the T-34), also well known under the name "Hanomag". Zvezda offers with the 251 Stuka Zu Fuss another version of this vehicle.

Let us take a look at the modelkit included in this expansion:

The kit comes in one grey sprue of plastic. Here and there are some ejectormarks which may be needed to remove. I did not find any real sinkholes, some spots are minimal sunken in, and the amount of mouldlines is minimal. Some tools are moulded onto the hull, the MG34 lacks of greater detail compared to MG34s from other 15mm kits.

As usual for most Zvezda 1:100 kits, the roadwheels are ok, but the tracks have low detail on the outside and no details on the inner side of them. A quick comparison with the PSC Sd.Kfz. 251 shows that the tracks of both kits have the same standard.

There are neither crewmembers nor a decalsheet included.

I am no expert, but according to the wikipedia article, this thing should not have side vision slits for the crew compartment. By the way, the boxart does not show them, but in best Zvezda tradition they recycled their boxart of the 1:35 modelkit of the Hanomag for this expansion. You can see this on many "Art Of Tactic" boxes.

Todays closer look at a kit contains some closeups:

Some deatailed views on the sprue show more, in the upper left corner you see the damaged hood of this kit, but it may be that this fault came only on my kit. Also you can see the less detailed machinegun on the left.

Due to the wellmade building instruction on the back of the box, the construction of this modelkit went pretty fast and uncomplicated, as with all (most?) other 1:100 Zvezda tanks kits, you will not need glue to build this kit, but it is more stable if you use modellers cement on the parts.

The picture below shows my w.i.p. 251/1 halftrack with some leftover parts from the Plastic Soldier Company Sd.Kfz. 250 (coming soon) before it was converted to a SD.Kfz. 251/10 (I also had the choice to build a 251/9 with some leftover BFM Puma bits):

Everything worked as supposed and with a first layer of paint, I think it was Revell Aquacolor Africabrown, at the moment the model is in this state:

(in you background you can see some (also w.i.p.) technicals made from 3Dprinted SUVs and leftover bits)

To be honest, I do not have any use for this (or do I?), but now, after it was on my table, I would say that even when this is a ok kit (if you ignore the absence of crewminis and decals), you should go for an alternative. The grade of detail is not too bad, but there are some inconsenties about the version.

Compared to the cost of below 4 Euros for it, for app. 5 Euros you could get the Plastic Soldier Company 251/c or 251/D (picture) where some crew figures and a big load of stowage are included. 

Battlefront miniatures also offers a Hanomag, which I know only from pictures, while there are no crew figures included, you could not only build the 251/1 version from that kit, also you could build the 251/9 and 251/10.

If you have leftover bits to build other Hanomag versions, I recommend this kit for cheap conversions, but if you need 251/1 then you should get the PSC 251/1 for the simple reason that it contains crewfigures and parts to customize its look.

This Thursday we are going to take a look at an Allied or Soviet "Art Of Tactic" expansion at the usual time, more about the current scheduling can be found in the lastest blog update post. And this Friday I am going to do another closer look at a German"Art Of Tactic" expansion, and this will get written that day.

Zvezda 1:100 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Stuka Zu Fuss

A closer look at the 1:100 Sonderkraftfahrzeug 251/1 Ausführung B modelkit made by the Russian producer Zvezda for its "Art Of Tactic" wargame range. My mate Olli suggested to make a custom unit card for (future "TANKS" games) for this model, and I agreed. When he ordered this thing I took the opportunity to review it. You may excuse some missing bits, it was some weeks ago when I had this kit in my hand, but I try my best.

Without any words left, let us take a look at the kit which is included in this game expansion:

The kit comes in two grey plastic sprues which are just a little bit softer than the green plastic which is used for Soviet "Art of Tactic" models, maybe it even is the same stuff in grey color, since this plastic is harder than some of the grey plastic I already knew. And do not let me start with the Allied kits for the game. Since their tanks are not included in the current batch of reviews, you may expect to get a closer look at them at the end of the year.

The quality of the cast is great without any sinkholes or ejectormarks which would be seen, when this kit is built. There is minimal amount of flash and moldlines to remove, but this should take no big efford.

As all other Zvezda wargaming kits, this halftrack can be build without the use of glue, but the plastic takes normal modelglue very well and binds pretty fast.

This overall impression for this kit is good, also it is pretty low priced. The overall grade of detail is good compared to its scale. Even the tracks are not bad but they are still kept simplified. I guess that the newer "Art Of Tactic" expansion kits contain better designed tracks. While there are some more Zvezda kit reviews in the pipeline, in some of the next minireviews we will see some of the less detailed tracksets.

I give this kit my thumbs up, and since this was not my kit which is shown in this post, sooner or later this kit will find its way to my workbench.

My mate Olli built the kit and had no issues except for the launcher parts, these things are pretty small and he had to redrill the holes of the rockets to make them fit together properly.

The last picture shows the Zvezda Sd.Kfz. 251 Ausführung B model compared to two (w.i.p.) Plastic Soldier Company Sd.Kfz. 251D (the modernized version of this halftrack), both equipped with some infrared parts made by Heer46.

On a first look the proportions of the models seem almost equal even when they are different versions of this halftracked vehicle. They could be used side by side in any German army. I think, that the rocket launchers could be used on any manufacturers 251 with some little modifications.

When Olli has finished the paintjob, I will take a picture of this and create another custom unit for "TANKS". The inofficial KV-2 expansion for "TANKS" hopefully will be finished on Monday, before it will go online, I will have to get to my local copyshop for a testprint of the new cards.
At the moment I have further 2 (3) Soviet tanks on my desk, if I manage to finish them this weekend, they will get their custom cards too (including some equipment and doctrines), as well as the Maus will.

But before that happens, the next post will take us back to Sassnitz again.

Doyusha 1:40 Leichter Schützenpanzerwagen SdKfz. 250/10

Some pictures of Dyosho's SdKfz250/10. I finished this kit about one month ago, the same time I finished the Tiger II I posted last week of.

The kit was almost build out of the box but the rubbertracks sucked that I replaced them with some 1/35 Panzer II tracks that I had in my sparebox. The barrel of the gun is a 1/72 T-34/76 barrel, that fits great, but the gun needs to be repainted.
The crew figures were taken from Warlord Games or Wargames Factory 28mm plastic German Infantry, the AA machinegun came also from this box.

For the paintjob I used Revell Aquacolor paints (Sand, Olivegrün, Lehmbraun?) and my airbrush, the only thing I did after that was some light drybrush with Beige. The decals were from the sparebook.

A Sdkfz 250/10 in 1:40 with 1:56 crew figures VS a Tiger II in 1:48.

The size difference between these two models is high, and even I think this would not be tolerable for wargaming since the Sdkfz has almost the size of a 1/48 Panzer III, what would it look agains an 28mm model ?

Armourfast 1:72 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Part 4

I continued the work on my Armourfast 251's. I wanted to paint them in a generic 3 color camouflage with hard edges. For that I started to mask with tape, but the tape I use was/is not good for this. I made a visit to a local hobby store and bought some masking liquid, the shop owner told me that thau would work.

I painted the whole model in Aquacolor sand (#36116) after that I made spots with the masking liquid to the place that I wanted to keep sand colored.

After that the models got a layer of Revell Aquacolor fern green (#36360). Then I applied the next layer of masking liqid to mark the areas that I wanted to keep green.

The next layer of color was Aquacolor mud brown (#36180), I used it even when it is glossy, I learned some day ago that it won't shine anymore after the last layer of sealing matte paint.

After all the color was dry all I had to do was to remove the masking liquid to see if it worked as I planned. Watch the picture, it worked fine. It was tricky to remove all of the masking liquid (very sticky stuff), but when I was almost finished with it, I found out, that an old toothbrush was a good tool to remove the stuff.
I think this technique will work with normal brushes too, you do not have to own airbrush to use it. And the rmoval of the masking liquid (after it and the colors dried) could be easier if only one thin coat of it is used, as you can see on the first picture I took someting more then was needed.
But it worked :D
 

On the right 251 I took the antenna apart, it will be fitted later. The funker workplace was improvised without any sources and was scratchbuilt. 
I'm not sure what to do with the two 251s, but I tought about a new idea to apply wash. If I use now a good shiny clear color to seal it, a wash would only flow in the hollow (?) spots of the kit. I will use this method on an old toytank for a first try, if it works, that is something I will try before. You will read it here in this blog, but before that I have to finish some older projects.

The two Armourfast 251 will go now into the "actual projects" box, they will be finished someday because I found some days ago some pictures of an other model of which I own a kit, and these were a great inspiration for me so, but more infos soon, the topic will be Panzer46.

And then I will take some time on my 28mm undead army, I hope tomorrow my new Mantic zombies will arrive,it's time to kick some dwarfs' asses.

Armourfast 1:72 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Part 3

I finished the construction of my Sd.Kfz. 251s. The fenders are a little too low, the wheels fit very closely, luckily I lost one of the wheels therefore I use the wheels of the ESCI 251 which are a bit smaller.

On the following picture is a comparison of the Armourfast, Revell and ESCI frontwheels.

One of them got the pioneer bridge of the ESCI 251 kit, and when I'm at it I will loot another ESCI 251 kit so the other 251 will get a frame antenna. I hope I can attach it without too big spots of glue.

Some tools and other stuff will follow, I have to search my spareparts box for pieces to attach.

Both Armourfast Sd.Kfz. 251 got their base color, is this case I use Revell Aquacolor sand (#36116). I will try to paint them in 3 color hard edged camo pattern, eventually I will do this tonight at least I will try to mask them tonight. Then I have to find some decals for them.

Additional informations about this kit can be found in some older posts (here and here).

Armourfast 1:72 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Part 3

Soccer sucks...so here's part two of my small review of the Armourfast(HÄT) kit of the Sd.Kfz. 251. It is available via online shops and/or in your local model shop. I paid 13,5 Euros (postage included) what is a fair price.

The upper hull,from left to right:

Armourfast - ESCI/Italeri - Revell

It seems that the Armourfast hull is not as wide as the other manufacturer's hulls. After I measured the 3 hulls I can say that this is true. The Armourfast part is 30mm, the ESCI/Italeri part is 31,5mm and the Revell part is 31,3mm.
The wiki article about the 251 says that it is 2,1meters wide, divided with 72 give 29,17mm what means that the Armourfat kit is the most accurate kit or at least the width of it's hull.

I built some storage boxes from plastic card.

The Armourfast 251 with the rocket launcher
of the Revell Sd.Kfz. 251/1 kit.

It's a great kit, and with some time and little work it will look great. I'm looking forward to the future, Italeri will release a fastbuild version of the Sd.Kfz. 251 this year, that's why I will wait until I can make a direct comparison of both.

There are some parts that I changed or will change, the passenger storage boxes (see picture), a Notek light, a new trailer coupling and some minor things. Maybe I will drill out the holes of the roadwheels as I did on my StuG42 kits.
And then I will make my first experiences with airbrushing, I got the simple beginner pistol from Revell, it can be seen on the second picture. But before I do I have to finish some projects.

Armourfast 1:72 Sd.Kfz. 251/1 Part 4

Here are some detailed pictures of the Hanomag Sd.Kfz 251/1 made Armourfast(HÄT). This kit was announced some years ago, I remember that there was almost every second week a post in the HÄT forum which asked for the release date of this kit.

Let's take a look at this kit:

Front look at the sprue.

All parts are casted well without any mould lines or sinkholes except for the passenger seats. But why they didn't use the tan color of their other kits.

Back of the sprue.
I think it is the C version of this vehicle.

Some close look at the details: the rivetted hull, the front wheels
the machine guns (without handles, strange) and the tracks

The construction manual at the back of the box.
Note that some parts are not mentioned.

A first look at the kit shows that it is simple but has a lot of hidden potential. With some simple modifications this could be a fine wargaming model.

Matchbox 1:76 Sd.Kfz 11

The Matchbox Sd.Kfz. 11 kit was build out of the box, no great changes were made to it, the only thing I added was a windschield. One of the tracks broke and I had to use cyanacrylat glue to fix attach it. This had some negative effects to the paint of the wheels.

I painted it in the same style that I used on the Opel Blitz. It was first painted with Revell Aquacolor Africabrown (#36117), then it got a mild wash with Citadel Badab Black, after that it was heavily drybrushed with Revell Aquacolor Beige (#36314). The tracks were painted with Revell Aquacolor rust and the cover was painted with Revell Aquacolor Beige (#36314) then i drybrushed it white.

Italeri 1:72 Sd.Kfz. 11 & Hasegawa 1:72 Flak 18

Because I feel a little sick since the weekend today I will show only some pictures of the models I built last year. These two were built before I started with my Hasegawa Sd.Kfz. 7/2.

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.