Jakko’s 1:35 Dragon Sd.Kfz. 251

[Allen Dewire]

It's good to see you driving on, even with the horrible Dragon destructions Jakko. Patience is the key to success with it. Might it be easier to download the destructions from Dragon's kit DR6861 from Hobby Easy and use those instead. Of course, without the Nebelwerfer pieces. Most of all, keep having fun!!!...

Now you know why I sold all my Dragon 251 kits (except 2) and bought AFV Club kits instead...

Prost
Allen

[Guest]

I don’t think Dragon’s instructions are as bad as many people make them out to be, but they could most definitely be better. If I want to build any other 251s in future, though, AFV Club will definitely be higher on the list than Dragon …

[Guest]

More interior parts added …

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I had chucked the MP 40s and their magazine pouches into my spares boxes, but looking for photos of French soldiers in Indochina today, I came across pictures like these:

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It turns out the French used the MP 40 fairly extensively after the war, including in Indochina and Algeria, so I dug them back out and glued the pouches to the side walls where I had filled ejector pin marks earlier. The MP 40s themselves will follow after painting, though seeing how one of the men in the second photo has a Sten, I might just put one of those into the vehicle instead of an MP 40 on one side.

I also added the rifle racks in the forward stowage bins, but no rifles yet — again, after painting. I’ll put either four MAS 36s in one side, or two on each side. Ideally I would want eight rifles, but that would mean buying another set of Tamiya French infantry just to pilfer their weapons, and the one I have was expensive enough as it is.

The back rests for the benches were too neat and straight, so I carved, filed and scraped hollows into them, and a tear in one, to reflect they’ve been in use for a number of years already. A coat of liquid cement over them when I was done evened out the scratches again.

[Guest]

Today I made a radio:

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The kit comes with a German one, but I kind of doubt the French would have used that, because from 1944 they had been re-equipped almost entirely with American gear. After some research, I decided on an SCR-300 infantry radio, since this is an APC — I have no idea if it’s correct or even plausible, but this radio was widely used by French troops in Indochina, so it seems a reasonable enough choice. It’s also easy enough to build from some square rod, strip and punched discs, and fits inside the German radio rack that the kit provides. I left off the battery box that sits underneath the actual radio, as I figure that would have been hooked up to the vehicle’s electrical system.

Also, I made the main part of the grille on the front plate:

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These are six pieces of 2 × 0.5 mm strip, 21 mm long, cut from plastic card because I didn‘t have suitable strip at hand. The whole is almost 10.5 mm high and sits 5 mm above the lower edge of the plate. All these dimensions I got by measuring up the front plate and grille in the photo and the kit’s plate, by the way.

The little bits of plastic at the lower corners are spacers so the bottom louvre sits open. I’ll cut them down once the glue dries, and then also fill in the openings on the sides with putty.

[Jim R]

Great research and scratching as always.

[Guest]

With the interior construction done (I hope), I sprayed it with Mr. Hobby Olive Drab (1) lightened with some Tamiya Deck Tan:

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Nothing fancy, just an allover coat of it. I had to coax the last drops out of the bottle to get enough paint for all of it (I have three more, but using those would have meant mixing more of what was a random couple of drops into an unknown amount of paint that was left in the bottle.)

[Jim R]

Nice to see paint on the interior.

...... would have meant mixing more of what was a random couple of drops into an unknown amount of paint that was left in the bottle.

and even you guesstimating ain't that good :tongue-out3:

[Guest]

It wouldn’t really have mattered if it didn’t match perfectly, of course — the washes and drybrushings and stuff that will follow is going to change the colour and would have drawn not-quite-matched mixes together. It’s more that by getting the last drops out of the bottle that would come out, I avoided the mixing up of another batch entirely. I prefer to take the path of least resistance for stuff like that

[scottie3158]

Coming on nicely mate.

[Ian M]

Some interesting alternativ finishes you shown there Jakko. I might have go for the British/Canadian one (big surprise).

[Guest]

TBH, the French “conversion” was my first idea, but when I looked for more photos some of the British ones also had a certain appeal. The ambulance would require converting the interior, though, so I decided against that in the end; the Polish one was my main alternative choice, but in the end I decided the French one would be more interesting. There are plenty more photos of captured 251s to be found, BTW. This one is probably one of the most interesting, IMHO:

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This is the early type of 251/9, with the 7.5 cm gun mounted low in the front plate rather than on top of it. Full British markings, an Allied trailer and even an M2 HB machine gun on a pintle mount added.

[Allen Dewire]

Nice work so far Jakko!!! Really like the grill work and the interior is coming along fine too.......I think the hardest thing to do if one did decide to build the 251/9, pictured above, would be the writing on the back doors of it. Would be cool though!!!.......

Prost
Allen

[Guest]

If I had the AFV Club /9 kit instead of the Dragon one, I would have gone for that British vehicle The writing on the door is probably not that hard to do with a white pencil — the main difficulty would be getting it to look convincing, IMHO. Or you could just leave it off, because it wouldn’t have survived the first shower or major puddle anyway

[Panzerwrecker]

TBH, the French “conversion” was my first idea, but when I looked for more photos some of the British ones also had a certain appeal. The ambulance would require converting the interior, though, so I decided against that in the end; the Polish one was my main alternative choice, but in the end I decided the French one would be more interesting. There are plenty more photos of captured 251s to be found, BTW. This one is probably one of the most interesting, IMHO:

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This is the early type of 251/9, with the 7.5 cm gun mounted low in the front plate rather than on top of it. Full British markings, an Allied trailer and even an M2 HB machine gun on a pintle mount added.

Great ref pic. I wonder what all that chalk scribbling had to say?

[Guest]

Thanks for the liberation, well-wishes for the Allied troops and generic hellos, I’m guessing. That was usually the extent of the messages Belgian and Dutch people wrote on Allied vehicles at the time, anyway — this photo, if I’m not mistaken, was taken in Brussels soon after the city was liberated.