Trumpeter E-10, Aachen, Spring 1947

[Kingsman]

I've been blogging the work in progress on this vehicle and a companion E-25 over on Work In Progress here: http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235022768-first-afv-build-for-a-while/.  There's 4 pages on that blog with loads of pics, colours, products etc so I won't go over it all again.

 

Short version. Panzer 46 "What If" concept.  War dragged on, Entwicklungsfahrzeug were developed and fielded.  Improved weapons, hence bigger muzzle brake.

 

However, this and the partner E-25 are the first 1/35 AFV or other military models of any sort that I've built since 1989 - not counting Warhammer 40k kits and creations, which don't really count. An awful lot of new products and techniques have appeared, and the rate of appearance seems to grow daily.  Hardly a day goes by without some new weathering product and way of using it appearing.  So, this being my first use of very many products and techniques new to me, all comments appreciated.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bullbasket]

Nice job on the what if. Ditto for it's cousin.

 

John.

[Kris B]

Good, like those side skirts. Not often can See them on the models. 

[Kingsman]

The kit comes with plastic and brass solid schurzen. The mesh ones are from the Voyager detail set. I thought they made a nice change from the solid type, with interesting damage opportunities. People often show solid schurzen crumpled and bent, but they were several mm of armour plate and the mountings would most likely give way first - which is why you see so many missing in photos. The mesh type were much flimsier.

[Badder]

Fantastic, that. I love the shurzen. As you say, a great opportunity to create some damage.

 

After looking very hard I can only find one slight concern, and that's the positioning of the aerial. I doubt very much they'd place it at the very rear with cables coming through the engine compartment.

 

Rearguards

Badder

[FrancisGL]

A very interesting vehicle, its camo and weathering, make it very real. , cheers mate 

[Kingsman]

Question is, Badder, where else to put the antenna base?  Cables through the engine bay shouldn't have been a problem: screening and engine suppression were known then.  I believe some other German AFV had antenna bases on the engine deck, especially for star antenna.  There is plenty of real estate on the roof, but the Germans weren't ones for putting antenna bases on turret or hull roofs: I can't think of one.  Brackets for bases were most common once they went away from the side-mounted folding type.

 

Trumpeter and Voyager both agree on the location, but who really knows?  It never left the drawing board.

 

Thanks for all the comments, peeps.  It's the Avon IPMS show next weekend and I might enter the E-10 and E-25, so they've sprouted simple bases to stop them getting damaged in handling.  Bolted through so they can be removed and swapped.

 

I have noticed one goof on the E-10.  I've shown the outside faces of the sprocket teeth as polished metal, but the "late" E-10 track doesn't touch the outside face of the sprocket.  Oops......

[XL929]

Fantastic.

Love these late war what-ifs.

[PLC1966]

Great model,

although I suspect had the war carried on, the only way to get an E-10 to Aachen would have been with a coal fire powered engine !!

[Kingsman]

Well if the Luftwaffe could have coal-powered aircraft .............  Don't laugh: it was a real project.  Look up Lippisch P13.  Burn coal dust then burn the gas that produced in a jet engine.  A fighter with its own fire grate!  Did it have a comfy armchair too?

 

In the real world training tanks were powered by acetylene later in the war and many soft skins had coal burners.  AFAIK coal burning was never applied to AFV.  Open to correction on that.  But there was a lot of effort put into developing synthetic fuel, especially after the Romanian oilfields were over-run by the Russians.  By 1947 they might have discovered something such as alcohol as a petrol substitute.  I suppose it is also plausible that they may have cottoned-on that diesels can run on a wider range of substances and gone for diesels in a bigger way.