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Following on from my build of Trumpeters version Trumpeter 8T Sd.Kfz 7 Holzpritsche this project uses the only other 1/35 plastic kit representing this last variant of the 8T. This Dragon equivalent, although far easier to build than the Trumpeter kit does unfortunately come with its own set of accuracy issues. The largest problem being the cargo bed framework. Although not hugely visible on the finished model, they have only included the reinforced framework from their Flak variant which is totally different from the cargo version. In addition, they have not updated the instrument panel to the new cab's full width design, nor have they included the late running gear (wheels and tracks). Late variants were occasionally seen with the early wheels so although not entirely incorrect it would have been nice for Dragon to have updated the tooling for these too! Although no canvas tilt is offered, unlike the Trumpeter kit, they do include the wooden equipment rack. Sadly, they also misinterpret the layout of the rear bench and include two side facing benches instead of the correctly orientated back to back layout. The kit's clear plastic windscreen moulding depicts the older style drivers side split screen with opening which was dropped in favour of two non-opening panels. Although still not completely accurate the cab seating is better representated and other issues that are easily resolved include replacing the engine bay horn to represent the Bosch circular style one and moving the cab tilt hoop frame from the load bed to the cab. A full and excellent kit review can be found here: Dragon kit 6562 review I started this build in around 2015 and 99% was already assembled. The only aftermarket parts I used was a set of 'Quick wheel' front wheels. These come in two parts so they can be presented minus the rim and tyre which is perfect for the project I have in mind. To construct them the star shaped spokes simply 'turn and click' into the rim and tyre section. I built the kit up in sub sections to make painting easier but unlike my Trumpeter kit build, I had already attached the cab to the chassis. This means that some areas I would have liked to improve on will have to remain. A 'beat up' image of the real thing. Notice half the wheel rim hanging off the star shaped inner wheel hub and the other half sat on the ground below it. This vehicle has the curved upper cab side panel and the rear drop side cut out was to allow it to be lowered whilst towing. The cab canvas supporting hoop is sticking out of the cab floor. The image below shows the updated design whereby the rifle rack holders are now attached to the wooden equipment rack. The rack’s rear location pins can clearly be seen as it has fallen out of the slots on the cargo bed. Just as with the bench this design allowed for a quick removal to enable a complete flatbed if necessary. Although the front wheels are long gone the rear back-to-back style bench remains in the example below. Re-working some Dragon kit inaccuracies. Although it would now be tricky to re-work the load bed platform without damaging existing fittings, I did want to address the most visual inaccuracy. Dragon do not provide the late style instrument panel and the kit's centrally mounted older styled one was already fitted. Although the Trumpeter kit’s panel would still have required extending as the Dragon cab is a few millimetres wider I didn’t have one spare so building one from scratch was the only alternative. Carefully removing the old panel and framework the first thing to remedy was the inclusion of the priming fuel tank to the firewall. Luckily this part can be found in the kit. It looked very different to the Trumpeter part but as only the lower portion would be visible it could be added. Using the Panzer Tracts book as reference the new panel was constructed from plastic card, photo-etch, and scraped off switches from the old panel. It wasn’t perfect but under paint and with dial decals and screen added it will be presentable. As the kit has been built up with displaying the engine in mind, the trumpet style ‘early’ horn was replaced with the correct style circular Bosch item, taken from the Trumpeter kit. The bonnet/hood photo-etch tool clasps were replaced with 3D resin ones and again the headlights were replaced with a smaller ‘later’ style set. Although the radiator housing manufacturers logo would have been absent on a vehicle this late in the war, the fact that I have already attached it makes removing it tricky so that will also have to remain. The cab canvas metal hoop frame should be attached to the rear of the cab side panels. All the kit's illustrations bear this out but strangely the instructions have you attach it to the cargo wooden frame! I had already draped some green stuff tarps over it before I realised, so this too will have to remain😶 Other inaccuracies include the cab under-seat metalwork. It should sit further back on the floor and not sit flush with the cab side panels and there is no driver’s seat cut out for the deeper cushion. Unlike the Trumpeter kit they have at least represented seperate cushions. Another visable anomaly are the outer cargo bed hinges. They look to be far too chunky and have no detail on the inner faces. The wheel hubs for the track wheels are also of an earlier design. Before I committed to priming the model, some more paraphernalia including tarps were added to the cargo and cab areas. The cab bench received some crew gear along with some rope and a canteen lid. The engine bay also received a funnel and rags to give the impression the engine had been worked on before it was abandoned. Primer coat. The whole model received a primer coat of Mr Surfacer 1500 black. Any imperfections were dealt with and then it was time to decide on a base coat. Unlike the oddly coloured early war grey on the box art, all these late war vehicles would have left the factory in plain Dark yellow (Dunkelgelb). Any camouflage would then have been applied in the field. Having already completed the Trumpeter kit in a monochrome finish I considered adding some camo but as I had such a small canvas to work with, and looking at various reference images, including the photo I would loosely based the build on, I decided this would also remain in its factory applied paint. Undercoating With the primer colour acting as a shadow coat, starting off with the natural undercoat colours, all the metal components including the visible areas of the chassis, cargo bed frame, tilt poles, cab floor and bulkhead, bonnet, radiator housing, fenders and wheels received a light airbrushed coat of MRP red oxide primer colour. (not their red oxide primer) A lightened coat of Tamiya grey/buff acrylic was airbrushed over any visible wooden areas including the cab side panels and horizontal tilt beams. Some engine components and accessory colours were then blocked in with a paintbrush. Two coats of fine mist hairspray were then sprayed over the whole model. Base coats. Using my ready mixes of both MRP lacquers and Tamiya acrylics thinned with Mr Hobby Levelling Fluid and keeping the layers light to aid the hairspray chipping, slightly modulated mixes of Dark Yellow (Dunkelgelb) made up the base coat. The first mix was applied to the running gear and lower areas. The second coat feathered into and above the first mix and was followed by a further lightened coat to all the upper areas. A final highlight mix was lightly misted from overhead. Hairspray chipping I have always found the best results can be obtained using acrylic paints but with a slightly different approach it can also be effective using lacquers. Keeping the paint layers thin with just the right amount of hairspray coverage is the key. To achieve a realistic effect over multiple colours means adding hairspray in-between each layer. Although it is possible to ‘chip’ after all three layers have been added, it is much harder to achieve and I have found chipping each layer as you go makes life a little easier. It is then far easier to adjust the level of chipping and fine-tune the effects along the way. To illustrate the process you can see below using the bonnet as an example. Base coat paint mixes added. Base coat chipped. To improve the effect further, a third layer of paint (Dark grey) was added where the pioneer tools were located and again chipped back. The tailgate received the same treatment. Highlighting raised detail with acrylics as I have started to do on the tailgate can further enhanced the look. Oils will be used in later steps to add more effects. A slightly different approach was taken with the wooden panels of the cargo bed. To replicate the damage by loading and unloading items the floor and side panels would also have attracted scuffs as well as scrapes. The three horizontal top tilt frame beams were also wooden, but the bed frame and tilt poles were all made of steel. As these areas were primed with their corresponding undercoat colours; red primer on the steel and a grey/buff shade for bare wood. Selected areas were now picked out and chipped. The base coat layer chipped and scuffed exposing both the bare wood colour and the metalworks red oxide primer coat. Any effects that look extreme at this stage are easily toned down by laying another coat of paint over a hairspray layer or by covering the exposed primer by brush painting the topcoat layer colour back in. Having a slight variation in these additional layers can sometimes give a nice 3D effect. The wooden areas were given more scuff effects in the overlying paint than scratches. These effects will further be enhanced in later weathering steps.

A little tardy in getting this post done (ahead of last year's for timeliness). A good year for me-I managed to complete eleven projects. My goal was twelve, but still this was an all-time high for me. -Dragon T-34 Mod. 1941; Tamiya Panzer II Ausf. C; CAMs Vickers 6 Ton VAE 546; Gecko 1/16 Panzer II Ausf. F; Cyberhobby Panzer II Ausf. F; Miniart StuG O-Series. -Gecko Austin K2/Y Ambulance; Dragon Panzer III Ausf. E; Bronco Panzer II Ausf. D; Miniart SU-85; Miniart T-54A.

I wanted to work up a relatively quick build (@1 month or so) to up my output for the year since I'm a little behind in my goal of averaging one completed project per month. The newer-tooled Dragon Panzer and StuG III kits are really nice and are fairly straightforward and well-detailed. This one is getting close to the finish line, just needing a few small details and the tracks before I add it to a display base.

About 12 or so years back my son went through a phase of being interested in tanks and bought quite a few kits which he rather hoped I would build - some I have and some remained in the stash until recently when I got round to building the Bradley and Warrior for another current GB. For some reason he was under the impression I did not have an Abrams, Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 so he bought them, and now it is time for me to tackle the latter. I suspect this may be the first Dragon kit I have had and so far it looks pretty good. It has optional parts for both the 2A5 and 2A6 and I will have a shot at the later version, though I gather that there is little external difference. If anybody has built it themselves and knows of any potential problems I would be glad to hear from them! More as and when, but a brief overview of tank development is perhaps useful. Throughout its history the design of tanks has been to a large extent a balance between firepower, protection and mobility. Initially the only danger to tanks were guns, either on other tanks or in the form of artillery/anti-tank guns, and to a lesser extent mines. By the start of WWII aircraft were also becoming a threat and as the war drew to a close so were anti-tank rockets such as the Bazooka and Panzershreck/Panzerfaust. After the war ended rockets of one sort or another gradually began to take on an increasing importance, and tank designers found themselves falling into two main groups. Some such as the British wanted a big gun and thick armour at the expense of mobility so designed the Chieftain, whilst others such as the French decided that heavy armour was not enough to defeat the latest weapons, so their AMX 30 series of tanks were relatively lightly armoured but quite fast - a bit reminiscent of the debate about Battlecruisers many years earlier when the likes of Admiral Jackie Fisher thought speed was in itself a weapon, allowing them to engage anything they could out-fight and run away from anything they could not! The same sort of thinking lay behind the M18 Hellcat tank destroyer and may have had some merit had they not been incorrectly used at times, like the battlecruisers before them, to engage better armed and armoured enemy targets. When the then West German Army started to build its first post war tank, it decided that the new hollow charge rocket weapons could not be stopped by any reasonable thickness of armour so followed a similar path to the French. However, since the Leopard entered service in 1965 both the armour and gun have been progressively upgraded, the development of "composite" armour and other countermeasures allowing better protection with rather less weight penalty than was the case previously. Pete

I was lucky enough to score a second hand Dragon Sherman Vc Firefly at my local hobby shop for a reasonable € 20, considering that some vendors on eBay ask the most absurd prices for this kit. I finished it as Belvedere from the Staffordshire Yeomanry, using a combination of decals from the Airfix Vc kit and Braille Strike. As usuasl painted with Tamiya TS28 olive drab, with details painted with Vallejo colours. Stowage is from Black Dog and O3D. I hope you like it. Peter

Dragon’s excellent Pz.Kpfw. III Ausf. F. built as a vehicle of the 2d Panzer Division in Greece, 1941. Finished with Lifecolor paints-Friul tracks and Aber main gun barrel added.

Junkers Ju88 G Mistel + Gaz M415 (1:48). Diorama scratch built. Finished the GAZ recently and re-did the diorama. https://i.imgur.com/bbEIpRt.jpg[/img] Enjoy Brian

Hello tank fans, here is my part of the Achtung Panzer Group build. It will be Dragons M4A1 tank in 1/72 scale. Its one of the best AFV kit in my stash. The amount of delicate parts is really amazing, its also a very nice touch, that a lot of the pe parts, are supplied in plastic as well. Maybe this helps to defeat the carpet monster on this tiny Sherman :-) At first a view on the sprue parts/details (worth a look) and the instructions