Panther Ausf. G with AM-Works PE Up-date Set

This is the DML #6370, "Panther G w/ Steel Road Wheels" built up with the AM-Works "PE Up-date Set for DML Panther G 'Smart' Kits," #LW35054. The main gun barrel has been replaced with the Aber #35L56, "7,5 cm KwK L/70 - Panther G Late Production" gun barrel, and the tracks are Fruil #ATL-08, "Panther Late Type Tracks."

Basic finish is Tamiya acrylics. Paint mixes are calculated by-drop dispensed using an eye-dropper. The dark yellow base coat is XF-60 + XF-2 + XF-57 mixed at a ratio of 20 drops:10 drops:10 drops. The red brown is XF-64 + XF-60 + XF-55 mixed at a ratio of 20 drops: 8 drops: 1 drop. The olive green is XF-58 + XF-60 + XF-55 mixed at a ratio of 20 drops: 12 drops: 2 drops. For airbrushing, the paint mixes were reduced with a mixture of Tamiya X-20A + lacquer thinner. Again, using drops, the thinner was mixed 50 drops: 30 drops respectively. The approximate ratios of mixed color paints and reducer was 80 drops : 60 drops. To this final mixture, reduced for airbrushing, approximately 5 drops of Tamiya X-22 Clear. The clear retards the drying time of the paint slightly, keeping it from drying in the airbrush tip. It also replaces some of the binder (without add additional color) and improves the curing and adhesion of the color coats.

The basic 3-color camouflage was applied free-hand with the MAN-style "disk" ambush pattern sprayed through the Uschi von der Rosten self-adhesive soft masks. The tactical turret numbers were stenciled on using the AM-Works PE stencils "Turret Numbers for Large German Tanks." Other markings were applied using combinations of stencils and water-slide decals from various other manufacturers.

Detail painting and weathering was done with Citadel (Games Workshop) and Vallejo acrylics. Artist oils were used for color filters and general and pin washes, as needed. A "dust" colored transparent glaze was sprayed on to tone down the contrasts between the different areas and details. This glaze was mixed using Tamiya XF-57 Buff + X-22 Clear mixed at 1 drop: 2 drops and reduced with 60 drops of the previously described thinner mixture. This glaze with built-up gradually over the entire model with areas of concentration around obvious locations such as the edges of the hull sponsons and front fenders.

Gamblin artist pigments were used for the areas of heavy, textured "dirt and mud" accumulations. These pigments were generally applied dry over areas that had been wetted with ordinary tap water. After the water dried, the thickness of the pigment application was adjusted using a camel hair round brush and "fixed" with light over sprays of Testors Flat Coat (Dull Coat) lacquer.

The major deviation from the kit's assembly is in the suspension. The road wheels used were the rubber tired ones included in the kit instead of the steel wheels shown on the box art and in the instructions. Also, the excellent engineering of the DML kit's suspension allows it to be articulated easily. This is accomplished by removing the locator pins on the lower hull edges and from the outside of the bend in each swing arm. The swing arms are then not glued into their mounting holes. The molded-on torsion bars can simply be glued and anchored at their opposi interior ends. This allows the swing arms to move up and down. During final assembly onto the terrain base, the swing arms can be glued and on the inside of the hull through the turret ring thus fixing their postions.

The kit's drive sprockets require that their toothed rings be thinned down so that the sprocket teeth will fit into the holes on the Fruil tracks. This is best done by sanding down their inside faces to preserve their exterior details. The ideler wheels also need to be thinned down slightly to fit between the guide horns on the Fruil tracks. Again, this is easly accomplished by sanding until they will roll between the guide horns without binding.

The majority of the rest of the kit was assembled as per the kit instructions, referring to various references to ensure that the correct optional parts were used for the Sep '44 production vehicle being modeled.

Most of the AM-Works PE assemblies were soldered together for both strength and appearance. The soldered assemblies also allow realistic "battle damage," such as seen on the left front fender, the cleaning rod stowage tube, and right rear stowage box.

Jagdtiger Henschel Interior. Part II: Rear Wall

The rear wall of the Jagdtiger fighting compartment has a few interesting features compared to the rest of the vehicle and was perhaps the least difficult aspect to model in 1/35th scale. The most obvious feature, the center doors were well designed in the Tamiya kit. Our only addition was the rubber seal around the edge of the door. This seal is present on early black and white photos of the Aberdeen vehicle. Photos of the porsche at Bovington has only the rivets from the seal remaining.
The brackets on either side of the door, were presumably some type of internal locking mechanism which held a bar in place. To the left and possibly the right of the door, the intentionally vacant depression, are the periscope holders for the rear roof of the vehicle.
The large bolts on either side of the doors were to hold the large door mounts in place. We had intended to cast these in resin but were pleased with the appearance of the stacked PE bolts and these will be provided in the kit. The L shaped bracket on the right side of the rear wall has an unknown function but is likely relate to either an antenna to the command vehicle or perhaps to hold the mounting for commander's sight when the roof was removed. The tube over the door, again has an unknown function and does not appear to be the same design as those presumed to be map cases on the front and right walls.
The final feature worth noting is the large beam separating the rear wall from the firewall. This beam is likely added support for the rear wall. On the beam are two support brackets bracing the beam to the rear wall. There also a couple of square "boxes" of unknown function bolted to the underside of the beam. A couple of wire tie downs are also present with their function unknown.

Jagdtiger Henschel Interior. Part I. The Firewall

The jagdtiger was the heaviest tank destroyer to see production during world war II. Its menacing hulk has long been a popular modeling subject. A couple of after market interior kits for the jagdtiger have been produced but in my opinion lacked in detail and overall "buildability". Using one of these kits, I started a little over a year ago to build a Porsche jagdtiger with interior. After six months of research, kit modification and scratch building efforts I realized that the time I was putting in would be better spent by starting from scratch. I contacted Brian from AM and the work started. After an additional 6 months of research and design we have finally arrived at a finished product. With nearly 500 metal and resin parts, we believe this to be not only an accurate replica of the jagdtiger interior but perhaps one of the most detailed and accurate interior kits available in 1/35th scale.

The purpose of this blog will be to show the kits highlights and to use it as a forum to discuss any of our research arriving at the design. I would like to state from the start that goal of this project was to produce a replica...not merely a model. I think those of you who decide to tackle this kit will find a challenging but well designed and buildable kit. The construction of the interior alone will take between 30-50 hours for the average advanced modeler. Parts we felt might be too time consuming and perhaps too difficult to reproduce were cast in resin. Once again, your efforts to build this as designed will be rewarded not with simply producing a model but a 1/35th scale replica of the jagdtiger interior.

I began with the intention of modeling the porsche vehicle. Early on from my efforts with the Dragon kit's roof, we realized that removing the roof and either replacing it with a resin one or trying to salvage the roof from the kit would be too difficult for most to attempt. For this reason, we redirected our efforts towards modeling the Henschel vehicle and chose the Tamiya kit with its removable roof. Admittedly, the tamiya kit has a quite a few undesirable ejection marks throughout the interior and the roof has to be reworked a bit but overall it provides a great base for building a Henschel vehicle with a highly detailed interior.

The first portion of the kit we would like to highlight is the firewall. Both of the prior kits and indeed my first efforts at scratchbuilding were based solely on the King tiger references. The more I delved into reference photos it became obvious that there were distinct differences. For instance, unlike the King Tiger, the jagditger was far too heavy to ford rivers so there was no need for the wheel on the firewall of the King tiger to close the engine deck for fording. Also, the sides of the King tiger were occupied by the dominant ammunition racks so the components of the wall were compressed towards the center. In contrast, the jagdtiger had more room along the sides and the components a bit more spread out. Photographs from Devey's two volume set, the surviving Kubinka and Aberdeen vehicles and many other references were used to arrive at the final product.

King Tiger Firewall:

Locations of electrical components in King Tiger (left) vs. Jagdtiger (right):

Fire Extinguisher Details:

As you can see from the photo below, with the exception of the hinge pin for the engine hatch, everything is in brass. In the actual kit, the fan body, the fuel lines and some of the stacked components of the firewall will be given in resin for the reasons stated earlier.

1:35 Figure Uniform Insignia Decal Sets

The battle of Monte Cassino was known for 2 rather significant events:  Leveling of  the 1500 year old abbey, and the disaster suffered by U.S. 35th Infantry Division attempting to cross the Rapido river.

Little less known was General John P. Lucas' landing at Anzio, 70 miles north of Monte Cassino and 50 miles from Rome.  Even less known was his blunder on 30th, Jan, 1944 at Cisterna, that placed the three Ranger Battalions raised by Darby (1st, 3rd and 4th) in a direct confrontation against elements of the elite 2nd and 4th Fallschirmjager Divisions supported by members of Herman Goering Panzer Division and 715th Motorized Infantry Division . The 7 hour bloodshed resulted in total destruction of the three Ranger Battalions (hence only 2nd and 5th participated in Operation Overlord on D-Day. 6th Ranger Battalion fought in the pacific. Among their courageous acts was the successful execution of POW rescue on Luzon. Depicted in the movie "The Great Raid")

This picture was taken near Cisterna in June, 1944, five months after the landing at Anzio.

Life magazine photos

June 6th approaching. We'd like to take this opportunity and introduce our 1:35 U.S Army figure insignia decal sets.  One set for WWII, and the other for modern subjects with ACU uniform.

On D-Day, A, B and C companies of 2nd Ranger Battalion landed at Omaha Beach with soldiers of 1st and 29th infantry division. Of all the characters in Saving Private Ryan, the portrayal of Lt. Col. James Earl Rudder by Dennis Farina was probably the least impressive. The man that led the Rangers up the sheer cliff of Point Du Hoc was not a grumpy old man.

The imaginary character, Private James Francis Ryan of Payton, Iowa, was part of 101st Airborne, as with all other members of U.S. Army encountered by Miller's element after they had left the beachhead. Noteworthy was Captain Fred Hamill played by Ted Danson, who identified himself as a Pathfinder - one of the 18 teams set out to mark landing zones for the paratroopers - some of the most dangerous missions on D-Day, and awarded with the extremely prestigious Pathfinder's Badge (Worn  4 inches above left sleeve cuff).  

Ranger Battalions were deactivated after WWII, and re-raised in the 70s and 80s. The 75th Ranger Regiment was reformed in 1986, consist of 3 Ranger Battalions. There are now also 4th, 5th and 6th Ranger Battalions that are part of the Ranger Training Brigade.

The unit that participated in Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia was Bravo Company of 3rd Ranger Battalion. Alongside C Squadron of the Delta Force. All accurately depicted in the movie Blackhawk Down.

One of the more recent portrayal of Rangers was in the Hurt Locker.
I'm sure someone reading is screaming "Bullshit" right now and getting ready to link from wiki...  Indeed they were EOD, but Sergeant James T. Sanborn was serving with the Rangers in Afghanistan before transferring into the 52nd Ordnance group. 

So... the decal sets (and you thought we were talking about movies...) also include options for Marines. Marines don't use unit patches (they have, but the MCCUU doesn't have velcros for them. They wear a sew on Marine emblem on their left chest pocket.  Ranks are sewed onto the collars, name and the letters "U.S. MARINES" are also sewed on.

In addition to the insignia sets, we're releasing 2 sheets of camouflage decals, for ACUPAT and MARPAT. Each of these features 15cmX6cm of uninterrupted and unrepeated patterns of camouflage, in correct scale and architecture. Here are 28X28mm samples, equivalent to 1X1m in 1:1.

To date, we have accumulated a small range of insignia sets for 1:35 and 1:16 figures. The German sets also include photo etched badges and medals since German soldiers were known to wear those on their combat uniforms. These sets all come with instructions detailing their contents and applications.

1:35 Luftwaffe Uniform Insignias
1:35 Wehrmacht Uniform Insignias
1:35 Panzer Crew Uniform Insignias
1:35 Waffen-SS Uniform Insignias
1:16 (120mm) Wehrmacht Uniform Insignias
1:16 (120mm) Waffen-SS Uniform Insignias
1:35 U.S. Army WWII Uniform Insignias
1:35 U.S. Army Modern Uniform Insignias
1:35 U.S. ARMY ACUPAT Camouflage decal
1:35 U.S. MARINE MARPAT Camouflage decal
1:16 (120mm) U.S. Army WWII Uniform Insignias

1:350 U.S.NAVY and IJN Ship Marking Decals

The tradition of marking ships had long been established before there were navies. Sometimes more subtle than others. The Greek hero Achilles arrived in Troy onboard a myrmidon ship with a pitch black sail.
Rome employed sophisticated marking systems. Each ship displays color of its legion at the bow or stern. Towers were painted for identifications.  Unit emblem or figure of commander depicted on the hull...

Today,  warships carry hull markings for visual identification. Here we introduce 2 decal sets for marking ship models in 1:350 scale. One set for U.S. NAVY, including options for both modern and WWII era. The other set is for WWII Imperial Japanese Navy.

The U.S NAVY used 48 inch number on its destroyers before WWII. A sets of numbers on each side of the bow, and 2 sets for stern. All painted white with black shadow, stood out against the light gray or ivory background colors. Bigger ships used larger numbers, In the case of carriers, numbers painted on islands can be very tall. The decal set provides numbers up to 8 feet in height (15", 24", 48", 60", 72", 96"). Also includes letters and numbers in black and white without shadows, for auxiliary vessels such as sub chasers and mine sweepers.

During the war, numbers were reduced to 24 and 15 inches, and shadow color switched to gray to make them less visible.  Then after the war, they were revamped to the pre-war standards.

The Imperial Japanese Navy ships carried markings for their names and units. Numbers on each side of the bow indicates unit of the ship, and ship names were spelled out on sides of the hull in Katakana (Destroyers) and Hiragana at stern.

Before the war, Hiragana ship names at sterns were brass, replaced by painted version during the war, that were white with narrow black shadows. The decal sheet includes choices for all of the specifications.

More on hull numbers and ship names
USN
IJN

NW35039 1:350 USN Hull Marking decal set
NW35040 1:350 IJN Hull Marking decal set

1:350 U.S.NAVY and IJN Naval Flag Decals

To become a hero, one would usually need to be victorious, and also dead, more often than not.

Such was the case with Horatio Nelson. He had always been a brilliant strategist, but wasn't elevated to hero's status till after Battle of Trafalgar, he was victorious, but for that he also gave his life (out of all things, to a musket ball from a sniper sitting atop the mizzentop of the French ship of the line Redoutable). 

Brits won because pretty much everything went as Nelson had planned. Unable to direct much of the action that day, being mortally wounded. The exact count of orders Nelson issued during Battle of Trafalgar was...2. 

These messages were broadcasted to the fleet via signal flags hoisted up the mizzenmast (the mast immediately after the main mast) on Nelson's flag ship Victory.  They were displayed word by word, each word represented by a 3 flags arranged according to the 1803 Popham's code book.  Illustrated below.

The last 4 letters D-U-T-Y were each signaled by 2 digits. Interestingly, this system omitted the letter "J"  due to sailor superstition. More interestingly, such tradition is still in place today.

Nelson's last order was illustrated with 2 flags, for the letter O. Or in other words, a code within a code. The letter "O", when displayed alone, meant " Engage the enemy more closely".

In the above example, we also saw use of the first substitute flag.
A substitute flag is used to represent another flag that's currently being used. 

In the common 4 letter system, there are 3  substitute flags, for repeating first, second and third letter in the message respectively without requiring the same flag at 2 positions simultaneously.  (Or a second set of flags would be required). There are also systems that use 5 flags, with a 4th substitute flag.
F-O-O-D  =  F-O-2sub-D
T-R-E-E  =  T-R-E-3sub
A-A-R-O-N  =  A-1sub-R-O-N

More on codes

The systems used by militaries today are derivatives of the international signal system installed in the 1850s, but differ from country to country.

Here are our upcoming 1:350 signal flag sets. One for U.S. Navy, and the other for Imperial Japanese Navy.

The U.S. Navy decal includes 2 size 10 sets and 2 size 3 sets of flags, also all the special flags, pennants and rank displays. The size 3 set, is mathematically equivalent  to size 10 in 1:700, so this product actually suits both scales.

The Japanese decal includes 2 types of flags. One set according to WWII Japanese Navy regulation, and the other based on measurements from the impressive flag collection of the Mikasa Museum.

Design of hoists are different on the 2 sets, the 2 navies had different ways of hanging their flags. The decals come with detailed instructions.

Another use of signal flags is to display ship's ID. Each ship has a 4 letter ID, also known as radio call sign.

More on ship ID
USN
IJN

Some examples of ship ID and messages.

A century after Nelson's death, Japanese Admiral Tōgō Heihachirō displayed a similar message to encourage his men during Battle of Tsushima (Russo-Japanese War). This time, the long message was pre-assigned to one specific flag (Z) and hoisted up on Mikasa. Hanging of Z-flag became a Japanese military tradition. One example being the carrier Akagi displaying the Z-flag before the attack on Pearl Harbor.  

NW35041 1:350 USN Flag decal set
NW35042 1:350 IJN Flag decal set