Flakpanther 5.5cm Zwilling

[Mig Eater]

During the last few years of WW2 the Germans were scrambling to design new anti-aircraft vehicles to protect their armoured columns from the onslaught of Allied aircraft. One such design was proposed by Rheinmetall in 1943, it was based on the Panther tank and featured a new turret fitted with twin 5.5cm flak guns. The design was rejected as normal Panthers were in great demand and hulls couldn't be diverted for the secondary anti-aircraft roll. 

 

 

There are no model kits of this anti-aircraft variant of the Panther available, however Trumpeter have released a E-50 Flakpanzer that features Rheinmetall's 5.5cm anti-aircraft turret.

 

  

 

 

So the plan is it kitbash the Trumpeter turret with DasWerk's new Panther kit to make Rheinmetall's original proposal from 1943.

 

 

 

Luckily the E-50 Flakpanzer turret only needs a bit of sanding to fit the DasWerk panther hull.

Edited February 11 by Mig Eater

[Mig Eater]

Well they weren't kidding when they called it a "Super Blitz" kit, it only took me two leisurely days to build the hull.

 

First thing I did was spray the interior black with some cheap rattle can paint, I tried to do it as neatly as I could but you can see some over spray on the exterior of the hull.

 

 

After that the kit basically fell together without much effort, the one exception was the exhausts which are made from two parts and needed some Mr Surfacer to help fill the seam line. The kit does come with an alternative version of the exhausts that is one solid part tho.

 

 

 

 

The kit has several parts that are simplified to cut down on the part count, the most obvious example of this is the suspension arms which are molded as part of the hull.

 

 

 

The Panther uses 32 individual road wheels which can often be a pain to paint and fit onto the hull, DasWerk have greatly simplified this tho and you instead have two sub-assemblies for each side that slot together.

 

 

 

The tracks are link and length and the sections are pre shaped to fit around sprockets and wheels, they were probably the quickest and easiest tracks that I've ever built.

 

 

 

My only complaint with the kit is that the raised cooling fan for the crew heating system is molded onto the hull in the closed position but the slats on the opposite side are open, they should both be either open or closed tho. I plan to cover the cooling grills with anti-aircraft armour tho so I'm not that bothered by it for this build.

 

 

 

[Crayons]

Quite an interesting project. Other than the few simplified sections, the hull detail looks good. Be interesting to see how the turret builds up. Once I finish off my current Frankentank build, the 57th's flak panzer is next up.

[Stef N.]

Nice work Mig. The way they have produced those wheels is novel and interesting. Well done DW.👍👍

[Mig Eater]

11 hours ago, Crayons said:

Once I finish off my current Frankentank build, the 57th's flak panzer is next up.

 

I've been enjoying your Lowe build, I'd love to see what ideas you have for a what-if Flakpanzer too.

 

 

2 hours ago, Stef N. said:

The way they have produced those wheels is novel and interesting.

 

I've seen some model makers glue the wheels on Panther and Tiger tanks together into a subassembly in the past, perhaps that inspired the DasWerk kit designer...

[Retired Bob]

35 minutes ago, Mig Eater said:

I've seen some model makers glue the wheels on Panther and Tiger tanks together into a subassembly in the past, perhaps that inspired the DasWerk kit designer...

I've tried that method and it does work, if the kit comes with either 'magic tracks' or link and length tracks that need gluing together I found this was the best way of making a track assembly.

I clean up and place the inner wheels, sprockets and idlers onto their axles, glue the track lengths to the wheel rims and around the sprockets and idlers, let them dry, then slide the whole track assembly off the axles and paint them.  I detail paint the outer wheels and attach them later.  I find it makes a stronger assembly and avoids trying to get the tracks to fit after all the rest of the assembly and painting is finished.  Here are Panther G inner wheels, sprockets, idlers and tracks sprayed with black primer.

After detail painting and placing the outer wheels in position of one of the last batch of Panthers built with the steel rimmed wheel on the rear axle.

I've used this method on Panthers, Tigers, T-34s and even on some Stug III. 

[Keeff]

This looks a really good kit, and especially the wheel arrangement/fit ... so much simpler! 

 

Look forward to more updates now! 

 

Keith ☺️ 

[Milan Mynar]

Outstanding work.

[Mig Eater]

I've finished building the Trumpeter flak turret, 

 

I again spray painted the interior black but in hindsight it wasn't that necessary. The large square hatch on top of the turret is normally moveable and houses a range finder, but I decided to glue the hatch closed and omit the range finder (I've built a different version of this turret before and made all 4 of the turret's hatches moveable and also painted/weathered the interior, so I'm not that bothered this time). I also replace the barrels with some metal ones from RB models which have much better muzzel flashes.

 

All of the kit parts are now done but I have some extra details that I want to scratch build.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 16 by Mig Eater

[Crayons]

Nothing to do with you or your construction Mig Eater, but the turret seems a bit underwhelming, kind of bland. Maybe it seems that way because the hull has so many different details and the turret really has nothing. I still like the build though and a very good good call on replacing the barrels, especially the muzzle breaks. They are a fine work of art.

 

And I can most certainly say I would not want to be inside that thing once those 55mm guns started firing. Pretty sure that between the jarring recoil and the vibration any fillings one had would fall out.

[Mig Eater]

Yeah the the turret does look a bit empty compared to busy hull. There are a few extra details that I plan to add to the turret, they will hopefully add a bit more life to it tho.

[Crayons]

58 minutes ago, Mig Eater said:

Yeah the the turret does look a bit empty compared to busy hull. There are a few extra details that I plan to add to the turret, they will hopefully add a bit more life to it tho.

 

Count me along for the ride.

[Retired Bob]

On 17/02/2025 at 09:03, Mig Eater said:

Yeah the the turret does look a bit empty compared to busy hull. There are a few extra details that I plan to add to the turret, they will hopefully add a bit more life to it tho.

I'm sure you have some spare Panther track links that could be hung on the turret sides to make it look more interesting and avoid that empty space look.

Those RB gun barrels and muzzle flash covers look impressive.

[Mig Eater]

34 minutes ago, Retired Bob said:

I'm sure you have some spare Panther track links that could be hung on the turret sides to make it look more interesting and avoid that empty space look.

 

I decided to add some camouflage loops to the sides of the turret along with some other parts. I'm nearly done adding extra stuff to the model, I'll post an update to the build in a few days.

[Mig Eater]

It took me three days to build the Das Werk hull and Trumpeter turret and then two weeks to scratch build/3D print my own extra parts...

 

As this Panther was designed to fight aircraft it seemed appropriate to fit it with anti-aircraft armour over the engine deck. I have a photo-etch set of the Panther's anti-aircraft armour but I decided to save it and instead scratch build my own armour from some bass sheet and steel wire, using the photo-etch set as a guide. I also used some of the bass to add a debris deflector to the roof of the turret.

Years ago I bought several boxes of resin parts from Custom Scale which included over 100 rounds of 5.5cm flak ammo, I've been waiting for the opportunity to finally use some of them so I scattered a few around the engine deck.

I 3D printed a bracket to hold a Jerry can and added it to the rear of the turret, I filled it with a pair of MG42 ammo boxes and a rolled up tarp. I originally planed to add a second bracket with a Jerry can on the other side of the turret but I decided to leave it off as I liked the asymmetry of the single bracket. 

The turret has two lifting loops at the front of the turret, in order to actually lift the turret you'd need a third lifting loop at the rear of the turret, so I added it with the some wire. To preform maintenance on the guns you'd need to lift them out of the turret so I also added some lifting loops to the front of the guns with some wire. Continuing with the wire I added a handle to the rear hatch and camouflage loops to the sides of the turret and side skirts.

After adding all the camouflage loops I thought I should put them to use so I made some tree branches with Woodland Scenics foliage clusters that I tore up into small parts and then glued onto some seafoam trees. I've had the foliage clusters and seafoam trees for 20 years but this is my first time actually using either of them, I should have tried using them sooner as I'm quite happy with the results and now look forward to experimenting with them on future projects.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I 3D printed a travel lock to hold the guns in place when the tank isn't in combat. This part took several days of iteration until I was happy, the first design was a simple ledge that's was fixed in place but it would get in the way of the turret as it rotates. The next version could fold down onto the top of the hull but this then blocked the crew hatches. The third and final design folds down on to the top of the hull but then folds again back into itself. I was was inspired by the travel lock on the Jagdtiger which uses a similar folding mechanism.

 

 

 

 

[Crayons]

Much better. Only two things I can suggest as an addition is grab handles on the turret hatches and a thin wire through the foliage loops that is very often seen on German vehicles. Other than that, I like it. Paint scheme thoughts?

[Retired Bob]

It looks a lot better now, are you going for a late war hard edged camo scheme or something sprayed on? 

[Mig Eater]

3 hours ago, Crayons said:

Only two things I can suggest as an addition is grab handles on the turret hatches and a thin wire through the foliage loops that is very often seen on German vehicles.

Oh good idea I forgot about the hatches on top of the turret 👍

 

I plan to add some wire through the loops but after I've finished painting, as I'm worried that the wire will get in the way of all the masking that I'll need to do...

 

 

3 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

are you going for a late war hard edged camo scheme or something sprayed on? 

 

I'm going to try and paint a disk camo pattern, which is something you've done yourself 🫡 Not looking forward to punching a 1000 disks out of masking tape, but it should hopefully look pretty unique.

 

 

[Retired Bob]

I used this set of masks to try and get a disc camo, didn't really work out, reading about how the Germans obtained their disc camo they used a different technique of spraying the Dunkel Gelb over the other camo colours through cardboard mask patterns.

 

I bought that MXpression set from Historex.  I then tried the Archer set, you paint the green and brown camo on your model and apply the discs and part discs by their Dunkle Gelb coloured dry decal method.  very slow and difficult to get a neat effect with all the lumps and bumps on a Panther tank.  I keep thinking of trying it on a Maus tank that I have. 

 

I got a better result when I used the Archer disc camo dry fix decals on my Jagdpanzer.  The effect is better.

 

Hope this is helpful,

Regards

Bob

[Mig Eater]

I have the MXpression set too but the disks are densely packed into squares, were as I want to paint the disks in different bands with gaps in between (similar to your attempt with the MXpression set). I'll instead manually punch a whole bunch of disks out of masking tape then I'll be able to customize the pattern however I want.

 

 

Edited March 4 by Mig Eater

[Crayons]

On 3/4/2025 at 12:18 AM, Mig Eater said:

Not looking forward to punching a 1000 disks out of masking tape, but it should hopefully look pretty unique.

Can't say that I am the least bit envious of you with tedious task ahead.

[Retired Bob]

18 hours ago, Mig Eater said:

I have the MXpression set too but the disks are densely packed into squares, were as I want to paint the disks in different bands with gaps in between (similar to your attempt with the MXpression set). I'll instead manually punch a whole bunch of disks out of masking tape then I'll be able to customize the pattern however I want.

I thought about trying that idea before I managed to buy the MXpression and Archer sets.  The only commercial hole punch I could find punched out disc's that were too large, and you need disc's of a couple of different sizes to get a good camo effect.  My experiment with punched out disc's ended up looking overscale, that's why my Maus is still in base colour.

[Mig Eater]

I primed the model ready for painting.

 

 

 

As mentioned before I want to try painting the tank in a late war disk camouflage pattern, to help me with this I bought a new punch tool so I can cut small disks out of masking tape. It uses a spring-loaded screw mechanism where you push down on the handle and the punch rotates to cut a hole and comes with 6 different sized punches ranging from 4mm to 1.5mm. 

 

Before I used it on the model I decided to first test it out on some scrap plastic, I'm really happy with the results and think it will look great on the model but its going to take me awhile to punch out enough disks for the whole tank...

 

Edited March 18 by Mig Eater

[mick]

great work

[Stef N.]

26 minutes ago, Mig Eater said:

I primed the model ready for painting.

 

 

 

As mentioned before I want to try painting the tank in a late war disk camouflage pattern, to help me with this I bought a new punch tool so I can cut small disks out of masking tape. It uses a spring-loaded screw mechanism where you push down on the handle and the punch rotates to cut a hole and comes with 6 different sized punches ranging from 4mm to 1.5mm. 

 

Before I used it on the model I decided to first test it out on some scrap plastic, I'm really happy with the results and think it will look great on the model but its going to take me awhile to punch out enough disks for the whole tank...

 

Top tip Mig. That looks a very handy tool.👍👍