Kfz. 252 for Blitzkrieg

Another conversion from my Early-War force I'll show today, as I finish up a few more things on the T16/6pdr build is my Kfz. 252.

In the earlier StuG platoons, the commander rode around in a Kfz. 253. Battlefront's platoon includes this vehicle as the commander of the platoon, but does not make models for, nor include the Kfz. 252. This was an ammo carrier for the StuG. It makes sense to not have them, because they were not combat vehicles, but all the same, it's a funky model I decided to convert for the sake of an objective.

Here you can see the process of shaving down a Kfz. 250 for use in this madness. I have a jeweler's saw, which I can not recommend enough! I also narrowed the front end. For some reason Battlefront makes their 250s have a kind of tombstone front, and doesn't bevel them in at all. Next, it was cut and insert the back end, putty to smooth out the joins, and plasticard for the rear doors. The trailer is from pieces of a Kfz. 10/5 trailer, cut apart and glued with plasticard. The crew are leftovers, some from the desert, some from generic guns replaced with desert figures. I didn't end up having three, because there just wasn't the room.

The final painted vehicle is slightly different in layout (more space efficient), and depicts two crew from the 252 laying out StuG shells in preparation for a StuG darting back from the front lines to get more ammunition. They're laying them out to speed up the process since, as a battlefield objective, they're not exactly far from fire themselves! The paintscheme is, I know, a rare use splattering of brown mud over the grey paint, but I figure of any of them, the Kfz. 252 would want some extra camo.

This angle shows the interior. It's not converted in any specific way, as the interior already pretty much matches. It's painted white, as most vehicle interiors at the time were, with door and hatch interiors painted to match the exterior, so they wouldn't act as big targets. You can see the extra detail thrown on the trailer, with a piece of paper and leftover strip of plasticard for the lid, and modelling wire for the trailer hook.

The crew are painted in standard Wehrmacht colours, and given the red waffenfarbe of the Assault Guns. It's meant to be a force fighting in either Poland or France, so they still have the national symbol and Wehrmacht symbols on their helmets.

This was a fun model to start my Blitz painting with, as it let me test colour schemes on a model that would be out of place a bit regardless.

Happy New Year by the way!

Kfz. 70 conversion

The 6pdr project is going steadily, but nothing yet really worthy of photographing. Because of that, I'll show some of my previous work!

First, the Kfz. 70s. I've bought a Motorized Rifle Company for blitzkrieg, and have been slowly painting it amongst my other projects. The problem with the BF transports is they only give one block of ranked up, sitting infantry for each truck! This means one either has all their trucks half full, or half of them full, the other half empty. Considering trucks are now only on the field if they're filled with guys, this seems somewhat silly, and unfortunate.

So once again, I decided to go overboard to make all the vehicles appear full. I determined to make half have covered roofs, and the other half open-topped and loaded with soldiers.

The first step was to clean-cut the folded down windscreen, and take off the collected bars at the front of the passenger compartment. Once this was done, many holes were drilled, and three or four paperclips became good sturdy frames for the covers. I have previously used blister plastic to make windscreens, which is my intent again here. I decided, since I've not done this before, to test a variety of methods of making 'canvas' covers, namely: tissue paper, newsprint (with glue and water to adhere it), or plasticard (with putty details).

  

 I can now say with certainty that tissue paper is the best, if most finicky, newsprint-and-tissue is a decent mix for a more taut cover, and plasticard is just a nightmare. The card is too thick, too stubborn, and doesn't end up detailed enough.

 Here then, is the finished group of trucks. First the guys with their passengers all ranked up, with the markings on the front to distinguish platoons. With half having the width markings, and the other half branch of service, I'll be able to have half the vehicles in each platoon be covered and uncovered, without too much fuss trying to remember who is with whom.

Finally, here's the covered trucks painted up. You can see the front canopies applied, the same front fender markings, and the variety of materials. The two at the back are the tissue paper ones, front-left is tissue-and-newsprint, and front-right is the plasticard one, with putty added after to give it some texture. The bases are flocked with two separate types of grass, one very dark and almost like dander, for 'short grasses' or low bushes, and the other a lighter green static grass.There's surprisingly few markings, and no balkenkreuzes along the side, because none of the photo research I could find had any.

Soon, I pull out the pair of Kfz. 15s and paint them up, and then the transport section for my force will be finished!