Well finally got my camera fixed. It's a bit overcast here so the colour is a bit off....but what the hey. For those who came in late:
Dragon Panther Ausf D (Kursk kit), PART PE grills, Schurtzen and fenders. Scratch built driver and radio operators area and comander's cupola interior detailed. Scratched track pins, towing cable and clevis retaining pins, etc.
Insanity item : drilled out the solidly moulded guidehorns on the Dragon indy links -all 198 of them.
Crew basically Dragon 'Tiger Aces' and Tank crew - modified to fit naturally to the poses required.
OOB the kit will make a nice Panther, but not an accurate ausf D - Kursk or later. The biggest problem is the radiator air intakes which are left overs from Dragons Ausf A kit and are the symetrical round type found only on the very late model D's. The easiest fix is to replace them with MIG productions resin items. The cupola hatch is also incorrect for the early D, but this and a few other things are easily fixable.
I bult my vehicle as a late production D. This used the radiator intakes and cupola used in the kit, but also meant the jack had to be repositioned, AA mount needed to be fitted to cupola, debris grills needed to be fitted, communication hatch in turret had to be filled, etc.
This pic shows the filled communication hatch position and general layout.
This pic shows the added commanders direct sight, and some detail on the jack block mount. The kit comes with smoke launchers, but they were deleted from June 1943 production runs so were left off the kit.
This view shows the repositioned jack and scratch built retaining mounts and the filled keyhole in the rear turret hatch.
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Close up of the tool rack showing scratch built retaining clips (not pins like on the Ausf G)
Any constructive criticism is welcomed.