Hello guys,
My name is Ben from Rugby in England, I'm 31 years old, recently un-engaged to my girlfriend and I'm a modelling addict.
Hurrah! No interfering nagging women and modelling! Cushty!
That's a very nice looking kit Andy, I'm definately going to have to get that figure set as even though I'm not bothered about a Commander figure I REALLY like the crewman hanging out the side hatch! If I bought this figure set I could use him on my Panzer III N, I've got a StuG III A in desperate need of a decent Commander (open hatch but awful figure which needs replacing ASAP) and then a spare for the next Panzer III!
Here she is:
Note the kit supplied PE grills and turned Aluminium rifled barrel (like the Tamiya StuG III B): 
There are three suppled cammo options:
- Leningrad winter (as depicted on the box art)
- Kursk Summer (Dunky base with Red/Brown and Dark Green fine random lines)
- Tunisia (Tamiya call for their paint's to be mixed to make the required colour but my main interest is in the European theatre of war, particulary the Eastern Front so I won't be considering this)
Now then, from what I can gather, the Winter scheme is a grey basecoat with patches of white. Is this white paint or would the tank have been grey and have been whitewashed? The box art shows a very neat application of white, almost as if it were done in the factory? Any suggestions guys?
I know Bill did a Tiger I in this scheme so I'll ask him what he thinks but I like the Kurst Summer scheme so I'm going to go with that (I think).
Tracks: I'm going to avoid Friuls if I can as this was a stupidly expensive kit. I asked for a proper discount as I'm one of their 'better spending' customers at my LHS but they insisted that Tamiya prices have just gone up (again) and could only knock a few pounds off. In future I'll be shopping around before ordering as I've seen it on the web for sale between £25 to £46 new.
Including the kit tracks I've got three pairs of vinyl Panzer III 40cm tracks as I have two pairs left over from my two StuG's. I'm going to leave one pair well alone and using the other two pairs I'm going to see if I can carefully chop a few links of one of the pairs and glue them on to the other pair to 'extend' them. If this works I should be able to get a good sag going imo? The join will be under the roadwheels so it won't be visible but I'll be very neat anyway - it just depends if they join up with CA or normal glue well enough! Otherwise I'll try the normal kit tracks and failing that I'll order some MK's.
If anyone has a spare set of DS Panzer III tracks (if they make them) or unused Panzer III 40cm Magic Tracks I'll happily buy them from you?
Anyway, apart from the figures and base which I need to order it's roll on the 1st July! I hate having unbuilt kits cluttering the place up so I start a build and finish it - I never start a new build whilst I've got one on the bench 3 quarters completed (unless there's a major reason)! I've just received the base and scenery for my StuG III B so I'll be starting on that along with the figure to go with it so I need to stretch it out until July 1st to kill some time!
ATVB
Ben 