Thanks a bunch guys for the kind words!
Honestly, I had very little expectations when I started out this build, due to the pretty cheap kit, but I think it turned nicely.
Andy: I agree with you. It's the same principle as when you build a huge tank, say a King Tiger - you can only grasp the scale in comparison to a human figure. A couple of builds ago I decided always to add a figure to the tanks I build, since it seems to brings the whole thing to life. When I was building this series there were another aspect to it - I wanted to show the different tank uniforms that was used by Germany's allies. They differ pretty much - from the Finnish black leather jackets, to the Romanian Khaki uniform and Hungarian brown padded leather jackets.
Bill: Two of the other builds in the series are already finnished. I'll take some photographs tomorrow and post them on the forum.
For Romania I chose the French Renault UE carrier that the Romanian built on license under the designation "Malaxa tip UE". It is towning a 50mm Pak 38 that Germany exported to the Romanians in 1942.
Hungary is represented by a Panzer I Befehlswagen (Sd.kfz 265). In 1942 Germany turned over 24 of these to Romania when they upgraded thier own command vehicles to Pz III and Pz IV. Six of these Hungarian tanks where used by the 1st Hungarian armored field division, 3rd Hungarian army, on the Don Front, and was obliterated when the Soviets launched Operation Uranus.
The Italian contribution is repesented by a captured T-34 model 1942, littered with air recognition markings. The Italian 8th Army had a handful of these in service during 1942 and 1943, even thoght the German had decided that every captured tank should be turned over to them. I have just started the wheathering of this build. It should be finnished in a week or so.
The Slovakian contribution will be a Panzer II Ausf. C. This one I havn't started yet.
/Bultenibo aka Tony