DAK Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. G, 1942

[Waspie]

Nice save.
Probably get away with disguising it as a bit of battle damage or wear and tear on the end result.

[Jim R]

Tamiya quality = speedy, painless construction. Very glad the glue spill didn't do much damage.

[adt70hk]

Nice start Jakko. That has gone together very quickly indeed!
And a very good save on the glue spill. That could have gone horribly wrong.

ATB.

Andrew

[The Smythe Meister]

For some time, I’ve been wanting to build a Panzer IV, and when browsing Scalemates recently, I came across Tamiya’s fairly recent early Ausführung G, which includes markings and figures for North Africa:

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Something about the vehicles used in the desert in Egypt and Libya (by both sides) has long appealed to me, but I’ve not built many models of it. I also haven’t built a Panzer IV in, at a guess, about 20 years, so after some contemplation and a little research, I decided to buy it and build it straight from the box.

That research consisted mainly of looking in a Concord book about the vehicles used in North Africa, and coming across this photo:

Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf.F2 from Pz.Rgt.5, 21.Panzer-Division abandoned at El Alamein in November 1942. by Panzertruppen, on Flickr

That, BTW, looks like a scan from that book, given the clearly visible halftoning. Anyway, unless I’m very much mistaken, this tank is the exact one Tamiya depicted on the box art and as one of the marking options, so that settled it :smiling3:

Even better, when I asked on Missing-Lynx which colour it would have been in, somebody referred to a thread on another forum that has a second photo of the exact same tank:

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Both these photos are from British sources so the tank was clearly captured after the fighting at El Alamein.

However, that second photo shows that building it absolutely straight from the box is impossible: it had jerrycan racks on both sides, not a rack on the left and spare tracks on the right as Tamiya guessed. Oh, well, it’s not as if I’m honour-bound to go SFTB :smiling3:

Here is what you get in that box:

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Plus an instruction booklet and a sheet with historical background, but you can find those on Scalemates so I’m not going to put pictures of them up here :smiling3:

Though it’s probably not up to the standards of the RFM kits Los (Panzerwrecker) is building elsewhere on this forum, that’s fine by me — I don’t feel like doing hard work on models at the moment, so a quick (almost-)SFTB kit that’s basically accurate suits me fine.

Nice one Jakko, I've not done a IV myself yet either... Got the VERY OLD Tamiya one in the stash,but this looks rather better!!.. I'll be following along

[Guest]

Probably get away with disguising it as a bit of battle damage or wear and tear on the end result.

I’m hopeful it won’t show under a coat of paint

Tamiya quality = speedy, painless construction.

Very much so. In fact I’ve pretty much finished already

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This is about as far as I can build the kit parts before painting. Some bits are still loose, and I will add the rest after painting. I also need to build a few things that the kit doesn’t supply, like the jerrycan rack on the right side, and of course the figures.

a very good save on the glue spill. That could have gone horribly wrong.

I was lucky that the glue pot was far enough away from the upper hull that the puddle didn’t immediately flow under that. But it’s once more made me rather more aware of what I’m doing around an open glue bottle

I've not done a IV myself yet either... Got the VERY OLD Tamiya one in the stash,but this looks rather better!!..

That was a good kit 40 years ago or so, but I wouldn’t buy one today. If I were you, I’d probably sell it on or give it to someone (probably young) who has an interest in modelling This kit, and the other recent Tamiya Panzer IVs, may not be up to the standards of RFM or MiniArt, but it builds very easily and into quite a good model, yet it’s not outrageously priced, IMHO. I would definitely recommend it for the modeller who isn’t necessarily after the highest possible detail and historical correctness

[scottie3158]

That was quick. Lucky escape with the glue. Bring on the paint.

[Guest]

The speed surprised me too By now I’ve also built seven jerrycans and two of the figures, but I still need to do a bit more work on the tank before I can paint it. Also on that front, I will need to wait for an order I placed last Saturday to arrive, as it contains the paint I want to use

[Tworrs]

As has been said, this build is moving along at speed, and is looking very nice. Looking forward now to how you finish it off.

[Mickc1440]

Very quick build and it looks really good

[Guest]

After some more work tonight, I think the basic build is finished already:

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Aside from building the figures, I also added a jerrycan rack on the right, for which I had to remove the shovel (leaving its brackets) because else it couldn’t be long enough for what’s shown in the photo of the real 411 215. On the hull front, I also removed the fittings for the spare track on the transmission deck, as 215 looks to have been a very early Ausf. G that was made before those brackets were introduced.

The jerrycans are from Bronco. There is nothing wrong with the ones that come in the kit (other than lacking the central seam, which is easy enough to add from plastic card) but because I wanted seven cans, I didn’t want there to be any obvious visual differences between them, so I went for all Bronco cans instead.

As for the figures, the moulding on those is seriously impressive. Find the mould part line:

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It’s clearer on some parts than these, but especially the bare arms pretty much have no visible line, even on the side where it attaches to the sprue you frequently can’t even find it. Maybe it will show up more with a layer of paint, but then I can always scrape it back when I can see it

[Guest]

Looking good Jakko.
Spilt glue, once dry a gentle rub with somm 400 WnD should remove and polish up the spill.

[Graeme C.]

Just found this Jakko, it's gone together rather well, looking good.

[Guest]

Sprayed the model this afternoon in Tamiya XF-93:

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I also painted the skin parts on the figures over the past few days, and started on their uniforms. I’m not happy with the colour on the loader’s clothing, though, so that will get redone in a better shade.

[Guest]

Not much has happened to this model over the last week or so, but I thought I’d share another picture of the real tank that somebody posted elsewhere in a thread about which colours this tank was painted in:

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It’s clearly the same tank as the right rear view, because the overpainted rear turret number is visible, and other details confirm that this is the same tank as the 215 with the sandbags and spare tracks on the front.

[Guest]

In the discussion about the colours, it was pointed out to me that the tank’s S-hooks, that I had already spotted on the nose of the real tank, were in fact used to retain the length of spare track that lies flat on the hull front. That meant I have to have empty brackets on the mudguard (as is visible in the front picture of the real tank), but also that I need S-hooks, because I’m not sure the ones from the kit will be salvageable.

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After cutting the Tamiya parts off with a knife and a fine saw, I built the empty brackets from some strip and stretched sprue. In my German WWII spares box, I found two hooks from a Dragon Panzer III (leftover parts from a StuG I built 20, 25 years ago), from which I just needed to remove the brackets that were moulded onto them. But then I noticed that the real tank had at least three S-hooks on the front plate: one on each end of the spare track, and a third lying sort of above it. I guess I’ll need to separate the Tamiya part as well and try cleaning up at least one to be usable.