D
DBridges
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History
In March of 1943, the Krupp company proposed a design for a sturmgeschutz to be used in urban warfare, based on the experiences at Stalingrad. The vehicle would be capable of destroying bunkers and buildings in quick order. In May of that same year, Krupp completed a conceptual design for a vehicle based loosely off the new King Tiger chassis mounting a 305mm howitzer. The vehicle would have had frontal armor 130mm thick, a crew of 6, would have carried 10 rounds of ammunition, and would have weighed nearly 120 metric tons! However, the design never progressed beyond the drawing board, as an Alkett proposal was found to be far more suitable. That Alkett proposal ended up becoming the Sturmtiger.
The Model
The model is a 1/35th scale kit produced by New Connection Modellbau of Germany. New Connection specializes in the more exotic of German WWII subjects, and this kit is certainly no exception! The kit is resin with a massive turned aluminum barrel, and it comes with Friulmodel tracks. The quality of the resin is very nice, with only a few air bubbles on the superstructure. Other than that, parts quality is great, and clean-up of the parts is fairly easy.
I've had this model laying around for a couple of years now, and since rain kept me from making progress like I wanted to on my Tortoise this past week, I figured that I'd get this one started.
I began by getting the basic "big parts" cleaned up put together. The hull is a one piece tub design, with a few interior parts as well (I skipped these, as my model will be buttoned up). After clean-up, I put together the hull, rear plate, gun & mount, sponson blanks, and superstructure. This was pretty easy, but getting the gun lined up centrally with the aperture took careful doing.
There were some casting problems near the mantlet which had to be shaved away, as well as some air bubbles that needed to be dealt with. Killing two birds with one stone, I could fix these issues and add some needed cast texture using Mr. Surfacer 500. I applied two coats of this, stippling it with a stiff brush right after each application. After it had dried for a day, I sanded it down a bit to give it a nice texture.
So, this is where I'm at after about two days work. Nothing too fancy so far. Next, I need to fix some of the rough edges (read: gap filling
) before I continue with adding the detail and suspension parts.
David
In March of 1943, the Krupp company proposed a design for a sturmgeschutz to be used in urban warfare, based on the experiences at Stalingrad. The vehicle would be capable of destroying bunkers and buildings in quick order. In May of that same year, Krupp completed a conceptual design for a vehicle based loosely off the new King Tiger chassis mounting a 305mm howitzer. The vehicle would have had frontal armor 130mm thick, a crew of 6, would have carried 10 rounds of ammunition, and would have weighed nearly 120 metric tons! However, the design never progressed beyond the drawing board, as an Alkett proposal was found to be far more suitable. That Alkett proposal ended up becoming the Sturmtiger.
The Model
The model is a 1/35th scale kit produced by New Connection Modellbau of Germany. New Connection specializes in the more exotic of German WWII subjects, and this kit is certainly no exception! The kit is resin with a massive turned aluminum barrel, and it comes with Friulmodel tracks. The quality of the resin is very nice, with only a few air bubbles on the superstructure. Other than that, parts quality is great, and clean-up of the parts is fairly easy.
I've had this model laying around for a couple of years now, and since rain kept me from making progress like I wanted to on my Tortoise this past week, I figured that I'd get this one started.
I began by getting the basic "big parts" cleaned up put together. The hull is a one piece tub design, with a few interior parts as well (I skipped these, as my model will be buttoned up). After clean-up, I put together the hull, rear plate, gun & mount, sponson blanks, and superstructure. This was pretty easy, but getting the gun lined up centrally with the aperture took careful doing.
There were some casting problems near the mantlet which had to be shaved away, as well as some air bubbles that needed to be dealt with. Killing two birds with one stone, I could fix these issues and add some needed cast texture using Mr. Surfacer 500. I applied two coats of this, stippling it with a stiff brush right after each application. After it had dried for a day, I sanded it down a bit to give it a nice texture.
So, this is where I'm at after about two days work. Nothing too fancy so far. Next, I need to fix some of the rough edges (read: gap filling
) before I continue with adding the detail and suspension parts.David
