Italeri 1/35 RSO with PAK-40, w/Eduard etch & Volkssturm

[Sairou]

My next major armour project will be this, an Italeri RSO with PAK-40, a strange little German vehicle designed to fill the role of a mobile anti-tank gun. I bought this packaged with the Eduard etch (an ebay bargain), which so far has been a nice test for my new bending tool. Here's some progress pics, after a few night's work.

I enjoyed upgrading the driver's compartment, the etch makes a difference in this case.

While the rest of this kit is decent, the tracks are what I would call garbage- stiff, thick, and seemingly too big for the model. I'll try to work out a solution, but I may have to find aftermarket tracks- if anyone has any of these to hand, or knows of some affordable ones, please tell me!

Finally, a Zvezda Volkssturm man. The figure was fine to assemble, and nicely moulded for an inexpensive plastic figure, apart from one thing. The arm holding the gun does not fit at all, the provided Kar-98k being useless in this regard (but a nicely well-moulded rifle nonetheless), so I had to replace it. Luckily, I remembered from prior studies that Volkssturm units were commonly armed with Italian rifles, so a spare Italian M91 Carbine was chosen, and fitted fairly well into the hands. The way he is holding it isn't perfect, but a mostly untrained man would probably not have had the best grasp of how to use his rifle, so that's my excuse.

[Sairou]

Seemed this got uploaded twice, could an admin delete the duplicate?