WIP SturmPanzer II or Bison II

If you build it...it will come   It is the way of life!

Rounds Complete!!

Nice build on the obscurity!  And Germany lost why?........................................

                                                                                                               Pat.

Guys the performance feed-back consisted of:

#1= Gun was just fine

#2= Chassis was just fine

#3= Power and drive train was garbage.

The engine over heated quickly. The gear box ate gears and bearings at an unacceptable rate.

And to top it off NO Spare Parts were sent along with the units. That's why six of the twelve were kept at the repair depot and the parts from these were used to keep the other six running.

There also seems to be NO concrete evidence that they were even used in combat because of failure rates.

Heck of a way to run a war

Tony lee

PS: Thanks Jose

                                   Greetings Alabama Rebel,after reading your post I must say that in regards to it:

  1.Feedback from the field to the manfacturer was forbidden, although probably occurred under the table so to speak.

  2. The original Bison was built on a standard pz.II chassis with five roadwheels , the standard chassis was later stretched and widened and ftted with a sixth roadwheel. I wil find the pics and post them later.

                           Please do not take my responseas negative,I oy did so after reviewng my refs. .Again welcome t the forum.

                                                         Greg"Detailfreak"Rowley

Excellent work with this one! ... one of my favourite "odd" vehicles...

Was looking at the DML kit and I believe that they continued with the same configuration problems as the Alan/Ark kit. But these kits may not be entirely wrong either. As with all german SPG's, the Bison was probably being continuely modified. After the first batch flew out the door, and they received the crew reviews/complaints/reports back, they of course reconfigured the SPG again. The Panzer II chassis, I believe, was also being modified. The second batch probably went out the door with extended chassis and a 7th road wheel. Considering that the total produced was so low, you can't really call these production models but rather prototypes. About this time also the Wehrmacht was screaming for tanks so it was natural for them to scrape this project and move to the 38(t) chassis for their SPG's since the 38(t) was driven into obsolescence as a tank.

I couldn't believe this when I saw the news this morning.

Added features to the exterior and a complete new interior configuration to boot.

Thanks DML

Tony lee

Definitely will keep my eye out for this one as a future acquisition, thanks for the heads-up Tony...now get yours done ASAP so you can beat this one out before it's too late!

Pvt Mutt

Dragon to the rescue???:

Another MUST HAVE on the way.

Tony lee

Are you kidding. You just started putting this all together and they announce it? Unbelievable. Something sort of happened like this when I was building the Italeri Marder III H. Tristar and Dragon announced one. LOL

Dragon to the rescue???:

Another MUST HAVE on the way.

Tony lee

Tamiya

Tony lee

Curious...

Whose roadwheels did you use to replace the kit items?

Thanks...

That's what I thought too Roy but you've got to admit the pointy part is prettier than the butt end.

I really don't think the rounds would have been stored in there to start with to tell you the truth. With things how they are,kit and info lacking, what do you do?

Thanks for the comment Roy

Tony lee

Interesting thread!  Even more interesting and quality build!  If I can ask this question: the five 15cm rounds you have lying in the engine deck stowage box -- would they have their bases facing outwards rather than their warheads?  It would seem that you can't grab them if they are pointy end outward.  All ammo I see ususally has the base facing the loader to facilitate withdrawl.

Hope this helps.

Yep,in a 24 hr period we can get three different forecast.

The Wooly Worms have the best percentages.

Tony lee

Man Tony, you're flying with this one! With the tracks on it looks like a mean machine for sure with that low profile (a rarity in German vehicles!). I was in St. Louis this week on business and flew out Friday morning...was amazing how fast the weather changed in just 24 hours!

My God ttony your really flying along with this one, she looks great.

Terry.

                                       Hey Tony those tracks sure look good on there. This one is sure a bugger  far as refs. go.One ref I've got states that some were built on the standard pz.II chassis and the bulk on a mod chassis. Go figure!

                                    Old man winter is putting in his last word here today,must be two inches of wet snow already. Well have a good evening my friend,gotta go find my scoop shovel.

                                                                   Greg"Detailfreak"Rowley

That's going to look pretty good,the tracks pulled it all together.

Man it got kinda rough around here last night

Later

Tony lee

Hi Tony,

do you perhaps need a scaled drawing of the 15cm sIG 33 ? I held one in my small archive ... because I made this model in resin, formarly produced by airmodel in 1/35 and they had all times a scaled plan 1:1 printed ???

Best wishes ...

L.

... today I've received Dragon's VK 4502 (P) H (no. 6657) for reviewing ... nice part if you like those paper panzers !

Don't think it's possible to solve the mystery Tony given the limited number of vehicles produced, lack of surviving specimens, and the limited number of reference photos available.

Lothar,Bill already sent me that drawing but until you sent the letter I took it as just another surmise on their part.

Bill i've got a picture of a gun pulled from a Bison II and it looks just like the Dragon kit gun so the problem has to lie in the kit design. Looking at all the pictures i've got of the real thing, by eyeball the kit looks right from the exterior scale wise.

Heck,I don't know ???????

Tony lee

Dear Tony,

look into "Achtung Panzer" No.7, page 80-81 and esp. at drawing no. 114 !

Those may be better than my informations sent... I' ve forgotten to look into this publication by God ... I'm getting old and older....

So, Bill may have state the solution.

What's concerning measurements / scaling ??? Alan Ltd, hmmm may be a reason because it doesn't fix together.

It means that Alan either a) got the dimensions of the gun wrong or b) got the dimensions of the interior/hull wrong or c) got both wrong. Given the fact that many of their other kits (like the Grille M) also suffered interior dimensional problems, it's not inconceivable that the entire interior is inaccurate. The hand-drawn note/letter confirms what Achtung Panzer indicated was the ammo layout but the Alan kit as-is doesn't allow for that to be properly replicated. Personally I don't see a way you can make it work so the question will come down to how much inaccuracy you wish to tolerate in the finished project.   

Remember, the chassis of Panzer II was widened and extended by a 6th wheel ... however that's one and perhaps the initial question for FRANK-MODELLBAU / airmodel in the 80th of last century to stop reissue of his Bison II resin-made kit no. AM-1023 !

May be also a reason more for myself never assembled Bison II 

I've been studying the info I got from L. Limprecht  "Melchior"  and brothers there is something that just don't add up.

There is a hand written letter dated Apr.19,1988 from an actual Bison II crew member that shines some light on some of the interior questions i'm sure that more than myself have ask.

One page from the letter:

Looking at the engine firewall from the fighting compartment he says there were two metal boxes mounted,one held four rounds and the other one held three for a total of seven. The other three rounds the Bison II carried were placed on the floor under the gun and covered. Two other armored vehicles trailed along with 25 more rounds each for resupply.

So the kit firewall is all wrong,no big problem with that, it would be a simple scratch build to fix.

BUT,and here's the rub, he shows that the trailing arm did NOT extend into the engine compartment,which never made sense to me anyway,but was hooked to the interior side of the firewall via of the towing eye.

This arrangement allowed the gun to be lifted out ,the wheels attached and put back into action if the motor carriage was out of service.  Boys and Girls there ain't enough room with the kit design to build it this way.

What do you think? Any suggestion????

Tony lee

No ... Tony got all informations concerning the ammo stowage AND he will be able to create the only right one ever made as a model kit ... isn't it so Tony ?

Or do I have said too much now ? Sorry ???

Best regards

Pvt Mutt

 

My little helper is exhausted and had to take a break from the pressures of engineering.

Hard to get good help these days

Tony lee

HEY DOOG!!!

lol!

Tony, I gotta hand it to you. You consistently display a commitment to a standard of quality in your builds that is just textbook "commendable". You're like that soft-spoken guy with the nondescript stock bike who doesn't make a lot of noise or talk any smack but who kicks your @ss on the race track every time and cordially offers you a cold one afterward, lol. Your work is just reliably beautiful.

I say, don't knock yourself out trying to super-accurize the ammo stowage, These kinds of vehicle had removable floors, panels, etc, where they secreted away ammo, and you just can't know without some technical manual.

I have every confidence that your finished model won't need the added-aspect of that hyper-accuracy to blow us away.

  Always enjoy your posts!  Bison looking real good.