Crosses, its all about crosses. This post only exist because the PzBatt. 2107 Panthers had the Balkenkreuz painted in their turrets making them distinguishable from other units.
Up to now there were 26 Panthers in my collection, all with markings of the units participating in the Mortain counter-offensive. With these 7, I now have 33 Panthers and close to the 50 necessary for the Bulge (around 250 Panthers were used in this offensive making it most probably the biggest gathering of Panthers of WW2). Well, one needs aims in life to continue and I just made up this new one!
The above scene is inspired in the awsome Steve Noon's painting "Cutting Hell's Highway", the action of PzBgde 107 on the 22nd of September.
The model Panthers were originally from Matchbox (5), Airfix (1) and Esci (1). Only the Airfix was already built and painted but it became a surplus from the Mortain series and was left aside for being the ugliest of them all. Both the Matchbox and the Airfix models got plenty of new parts not only because they are quite incomplete but also they needed to be upgraded to the Ausf.G versions of the 107 PzBgde.
The main changes necessary for the Ausf.G were:
- antennae;
- the Matchbox mantlets had the later chin guard removed.
- new front mudguards and a rim to hold the new pieces of schürzen;
- plenty of hull pieces like boxes, tools and surplus track parts;
- a headlight for the right side mudguard for the Airfix and Matchbox models taken from surplus Hasegawa's.
- a new exaust for the Ausf.G version.
Of course in order to hide the many blanks a lot of two component foliage was added.
No Zimmerit on these ones as I never could master that thing and the conversions I see in this scale are pretty ugly atempts, sorry to say. Besides, and as a consolation, September 44 was the last month Zimmerit was aplied to tanks when the Germans finally realised no magnetic charges were produced by the western Allies or the Soviets. Like this this lot can head to Antwerp in December properly dressed for Christmas.
For the Ausf.G exaust I used Evergreen tubing in which the old Ausf.D tubes were inserted.
The new Matchbox Panthers Ausf.G.
The 107 PzBgde also painted its numbers on the back of the turret.
Regarding the sole Airfix Panther a bit more work was necessary to make this one more believable. The model is notoriously lower than the Matchbox one which looks much better. The entire set track was ripped off and glued some 3mm lower increasing the height of the model. Regarding the turret, its again a bit lower than the Matchbox's but it was kept like that.
The Airfix Panther got a bit taller and closer to its unit mates.
The Airfix model finished. As the original model doesn't have the rear boxes I just covered the area with foliage due to laziness.
Finally the tank of the 2107 Panzer battalion commander, Major Von Plüskow. The Esci is by far the best Panther model of the three brands, slightly bigger than others (1/72nd scale and 1/76th for the others) and much more detailed.
Again the main change is the exaust but you also need to cover the driver's vision slit, a feature discarded on the Ausf.G model. Plastic broom antennae were added to the rear and that includes the star antenna. To build these ones I use a small blob of GreenStuff on top of the antenna in which six smaller pieces are inserted. In the end a drop of SuperGlue makes the thing quite sturdy.
Here is Major Hans Albrecht Von Plüskow in his last hours of life as he will be KIA the next day, 23rd September, while attacking the Allied positions at Veghel.
After reading a bit about Plüskow I couldn't find much about his headdress but I like to believe he wore the Shirmmütze without the wire stiffener, as most of the officers of the Panzerwaffe did in the last 3 years of the war. For that look I burned the top part of the PSC M43 field cap of the figure in the previous picture and squashed it a little in order to look like the officer´s Shirmmütze.
Now that's an impressive collection of Panthers! Cheers Greg
ReplyDeleteThanks Greg. 33 total by now 😀
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff Joao. That Matchbox Panther must be quite old, it's the original two-tone plastic.
ReplyDeleteMost probably as I had them for decades. I mixed my own stash and some friends offers in this lot.
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