Blitzkrieg in the West (France 1940) Sept. 18 2011 - March 1 2012

Yes, no color camo plates to go by, just some upper hull (mostly turret) b/w drawings with placement for the markings.

Carl, scope it out man. I think you'll be able to come up with something. I never thought in the day that I'd buy a French tank. Well lookie whom concocted this GB?

Busy here already .

Eric , i'm in this but i want to look into getting a kit of French armor b4 i jump in . Never built any French armor b4 so i want to see if any of it for this time period looks interesting .

Thanks for the insight on the Friuls guys,,,,    Rob, if I do substitute out, I will send you the magics.....

Bill

Sorry to hear the problems with your kit.  I really enjoyed building mine but yes it is the newer one, not sure of the differences.  The kit I had did come with the option of the H38 gun or the longer H39 gun.  It also had the option of the French cupola or the German.  Here are the color plates from the instructions.

I have the first release Rob. I think they corrected a few things in the newer release, plus gave an option for a short barrel.

I must say these are the worst camo painting instructions I've ever seen. I've always heard good things about Bronco too.

I think the red / brown camo was the most common.  At least it is the ones that shows up the most in my refs.

Which kit do you have?  Is it the same one as Mansteins,?  That is the one I have and the painting chart is in color.  If  you do not have that I can post the pics of my old instructions that may help a little?

After looking at the markings, I might just go solid color. Personally, that sounds refreshing after all the tri-color camos. I see an olive and red-brown pattern too. 

Eric, Thats a retty cool paint job.  Once again can only tell you MM enamel colors.  Think would use SAND #1706 if you were going to do a heavy wash because it darkens up easy.  If going with a light to no wash would use AFRIKA BRAUN 42 #2102.  That would be for the yellow / tan color.  And as we had already talked about, would use French KHAKI #2106 for the green color.

You can replace the MM French Khaki  with the Tamiya Olive Drab or Khaki?  The yellow / tan color...Really dont know in Tamiya?

When using the MM sand or the afrika braun, you have to choose a light color primer or it will give you a darker hue if not careful.  I use different color primers depending on how light or dark I want the base coat.  If I want the color thats in the bottle, I use a light gray primer or no primer at all.

For the small black pin stripe between the colors, I would use a fine point sharpie.  After a few coats of dull coat it looks like paint.

Sorry if that does not help very much.

Ok Rod, i will try and do a comparison if i can. I don't use MM, so will see if i can find a pic of it.

Bill, if you have indies or Magic tracks, i would deffinatly use them. replaceing tracks with Fruils can get very expensive, trust me, i have enough of them just to replace my one piece vinyl's, i couldn't afford to replace my indies as well.

Hey Bish, compared to MM French Khaki (enamel #2106)

BaBill212

Does Friul make tracks for the Pz 38?        I did some sniffin around and I didn't see any...... 

Any help is always appreciated

 

Bill

Yuppers.

http://www.friulmodel.hu/en/atl-13-panzer-38-t-i17/ 

Rob, my instructions call for Tamiya XF-62 for the Olive Drab. I don't know if that is close enough, but I'm sure I could live with it. It appears that I have most of the Tamiya paints it calls for, but the painting instructions are a pure joke. Nothing to go by.

I like this scheme:

What colors would you say those are?

TM - In that pic of the Hotchkiss, it was propably repainted but the color looks like the same color as some of my refs.

BILL - I know Fiul makes tracks for the Pz 38.  Will take a look and see if can find them.

If I were you, would use the magice tracks.  They build up nicely and it will save you the money, unless you dont like them.  In that case you can send them to me

Rob, which colour do you need the Tamiya Kaki Drab compareing to.

Bill, yes they do, i have a couple of sets for my Marder III's. Set ATL-13

http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/FO35013

Does Friul make tracks for the Pz 38?        I did some sniffin around and I didn't see any...... 

Any help is always appreciated

Bill

Looking through my refs there were just about as many solid color (khaki) vehicles as there were camo ones.  Take a look at this one.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/echidna/3556439760/

Looking on the net you can of course find many pics of the Hotchkiss tanks.  Even though they are black and white you can tell many of them are of a solid color, at least they appear to be.

I think there were several solid color vehicles and if thats the route you went, do not think you would be wrong to do so.

When you ask about the Tamiya colors, I can only guess.  I think the Tamiya is to tan colored but I am not sure.  Do not have Tamiya Khaki Drab to compare it to?  Maybe someone else in the group uses Tamiya and would know?

Thanks Rob and glad you scored your tracks.

So were there many single colored H 39's? I think I have the MM Dunkelgrun. How about Tamiya Khaki Drab?

Terry, got you down and thanks for participating.

Sorry about the double post.

Thanks Rob and glad you scored your tracks.

So were there many single colored H 39's? I think I have the MM Dunkelgrun. How about Tamiya Khaki Drab?

Thats the joy of seperate bank accounts and e-mail addies. That and all my model stuff goes to barracks

Be keen to see how your kit comes along, i would like one of those to do in German markings.

Just ordered the Fruil's for the S35 from Sprue Brothers.  Now have to see what the wife says when she sees the invoice in the email

Hi Eric, I was in touch with Bill Carls and chatting away we decided to build the same kit, I will try and secure a Char B1 bis before the weekend and keep it for the build.

i' m really looking forward to this one thanks again for the idea and hosting.

Terry.

Eric, thanks for the finding the tracks going over now to take a look.

Not sure about acrylics, rarly use them.  Looking at the MM color chart, they do not make those colors in acrylic.  Once again compareing my paints to the acrylic color chart, looks like the closest thing for the French Khaki would be MM acrylic Dunkegrun RLM 71 (4781).  Thats not a perfect match but its close.  The chestnut, dont see anything in the acrlic that is even close.  Tamiya colors I have no idea?  Do not use them except for the buff, black, and white.

Rob, it looks like Fruils have them. here they are on sale at Greatmodels

http://www.greatmodels.com/~smartcart/cgi/display.cgi?item_num=FRIATL67 

Here they are at Spruebrothers for a bit more:

http://store.spruebrothers.com/categories.aspx?Keyword=Somua 

Question about the colors, I prefer Tamiya or MM acrylics. Any ideas?

TM - I've have several books on french tanks and use them for my refs.  The French had some crazy looking camo jobs but many of there tanks were done in a solid French Khaki color.  Its a brighter green then your normal khaki, found that the MM enamel French Khaki is a good match to my refs.  They were also done in all brown.  Once again the MM enamel chestnut is a good match.  I had painted my H39 with these colors.

MANSTEIN - Built that same kit a few years ago.  Good fit and fun to build.  It did have a lot of small parts though and the tracks were a pain in the butt!  Difficult because of there size. 

BISH - My S35 will be French.  It will have a three tone camo and will assign it to the 1re DLM 18e Dragons.

Does anyone know who makes AM tracks for the S35?  I opened the box last night to have a look and the tracks have to be replaced!  They are the old crapy vinyl silver tracks like you used to find in the older Italeri kits.

I spent part of the late evening looking for camo schemes. It should be interesting, though I think I could get away with a single color too. 

I'm having a rough go finding good sites for French armor. I've found a few leads, and they are interesting to say the least. 

Colors might be interesting as well. Olive drab?

bsyamato,,  yes, the Breguet,,, nice looking bird

Bob,,  I am looking forward to delivery on the 38(t),,, sound like a great kit.    Casting numbers on the tracks?!  Wow!        A knocked off turret diorama,,,,  hmm,   will have to evaluate once I receive.    And you're right, $22.00 is a steal!

Castle,,  which manufacturer / kit are you going with for your Krupp?      I recently finished the good old Tamiya offering.

Thanks Satch.  I did a little decal research and found that 'Assi' Hahn's plane for France was an E-3 with an E-4 canopy.  I've got to figure that was quite common.

Hopefully Darren will check his sources and agree and then I'll plead my case to Eric....

tigerman

Yes, as near as I can tell, it looks like the Krupp Protze is a go.

If you so choose, it's a go.

OK, I am in with the Krup Protze then.

 Cheers...

tigerman

Yes, as near as I can tell, it looks like the Krupp Protze is a go.

If you so choose, it's a go.

OK, I am in with the Krup Protze then.

 Cheers...

BaBill212

..

bsyamato,,, that is an interesting aircraft. I like it!

i suppose you mean the bregut 693

here a cybermodelller preview of the kit. On the same customer i spotted lots of other low price french kit from smer. Sure i'll get some other as the leo 451  ,less than 9 €.

For now just following this GB