I’m back with an update to the Grossdeutschland force. Both GD rifle regiments included a “heavy” battalion with a self-propelled anti-aircraft company, a motorized infantry gun company and a self-propelled anti-tank company. Eventually I want to model each company but I’m starting with the infantry gun company.
The motorized infantry gun company included one section of heavy infantry guns (150mm sIG33) and one section of light infantry guns (75mm leIG18). Pictured below are the guns and their prime movers. I previously modeled the light infantry gun using Zvezda set 6156; the prime mover for the gun is the Krupp Protze Kfz 69 (Dragon kit 7419). The heavy infantry gun is S-Model kit PS720190 with crew from Dragon kit 7374, the prime mover is the Demag D7 Sd.Kfz 10 (Special Armour kit 7210).
I posted pics of the leIG18 earlier in this thread, here is close up of the new Kfz 69. I already have a Krupp Protze made by Caesar Miniatures (kit 7203) which can be seen on page 1 of this thread. I picked up the Dragon version because I wanted to see how it compared to Caesar model. As I mentioned in the post about the Caesar kit, that model has over 100 parts and is incredibly detailed as it seems to be a 1/72 copy of the Tamiya 1/35 Krupp Protze. The Dragon kit is very detailed but has fewer parts and was much easier to build.
The Stalhelm divisional markings are not from the kit, those came from my stash. There should be tactical markings on the left side of the vehicle but I don’t have the decals or the patience to attempt freehand in this scale.
In terms of details, both kits are very close – here is a side by side comparison. I like the Dragon kit better because it was much easier to assemble but the Caesar kit is less expensive.
Here is a close up of the sIG33. The S-Model kit is beautifully detailed and was fairly easy to build. The kit comes with two identical models of the gun, which is a good thing, because some of the small thin parts snapped when I was cleaning up the sprue attachment points.
The S-Model version of the sIG33 features the steel wheels with rubber tires used for vehicle towing. Caesar Miniatures also makes a 1/72 sIG33, which features the all steel wheels used for horse towing. I picked up the Caesar kit years ago, but being a motorized infantry division Grossdeutschland would not have used that version of the gun, so when the S-Model kit came out I picked one up right away. I have not assembled the Caesar version but in comparing the parts on the sprue, the S-Model version appears to have better details. The Caesar model looks more like a wargame kit but with a large part count like a scale model.
The S-Model kit does not include a crew so I added figures from Dragon kit 7374 PaK 40 + PaK 36 with Gun Crew. The figures in the Dragon kit are scaled down versions of the 1/35 figures in Dragon kit 6433 PaK 40 with Heer Gun Crew and kit 6795 leFH 18/40 with Gun Crew. The figures are multi-part, which made them a bit of a chore to assemble, but they have very sharp details which made them very easy to paint.
The figure holding the ramrod is a minor conversion (I repositioned the left hand). The ramrod is not included in the kit, it came from a Zvezda Napoleonic artillery set - I just removed the sponge from one end. It might seem anachronistic, but there are contemporary pictures of the crews of WWII German howitzers and heavy infantry guns using ramrods to load the guns.
Besides being tedious to assemble, my only other complaint about these Dragon figures is that they are slightly over sized for 1/72. It would make sense to have the biggest, strongest soldiers in the battalion manning this gun as the high explosive shell fired by the sIG33 weighed 38kg/84 lb. It must have been exhausting to load this gun repeatedly in combat.
I like these figures for the sIG33 because it looks like they are preparing the gun for direct fire in close support of the infantry companies, a likely occurrence during Grossdeutschland’s assaults on Soviet defensive positions in 1942 (and in Kursk in 1943).
The final addition to the German force is a new Sd.Kfz 10. I posted pictures of the Caesar Miniatures version of the Demag D7 half-track (kit 7204) earlier in this thread. Below is the Special Armour version, which is a re-release of the MK72 kit which is now out of production. The plastic in this kit is different from the hard plastic most models are made from, it is very similar to the softer plastic used by Italeri for their models (even the color of the sprues is the same as the Italeri yellow plastic).
The original MK72 kit featured one-piece plastic tracks which were designed to be wrapped around the interleaved road wheels. Those tracks are on one of the yellow sprues from the original MK72 kit. The Special Armour kit comes with a new sprue in a dark grey plastic which includes replacement tracks, I’m not sure why. I was a bit nervous that the tracks would break during assembly, but I had no issues whatsoever. This made the entire build much easier than the Caesar Miniatures version which includes link and length tracks that were a pain to assemble.
The decals included with the kit include multiple license plate options, tactical markings for an anti-tank unit (which I did not use) and a single decal dashboard instrument panel. Unfortunately the decals are not well made, they tore apart easily. I was able to salvage the speedometer portion of the dashboard decal which is visible in the picture below.
The Special Armour kit does not include a plastic windshield (the Dragon Krupp Protze kit does, the Ceasar Miniatures kits do not). I’m not a very good modeler so I did not attempt to scratch build plastic windshields. I did replace the axe on the front fender with a smaller axe from the Dragon Kfz 69 kit, the smaller axe appears in pictures I found online of actual Demags.
Here is a side by side comparison of the Caesar and Special Armour models. I prefer the Special Armour version, both models are nicely detailed but the Special Armour kit goes together better and has more accurate details such as the front grill.
The last update is that I decided to replace the Pak38 conversion on page 1 of this thread with a straight out of the box Plastic Soldier Company Pak38. I was never happy with that kit bash of the PSC Pak38 and the gun from the Caesar SdKfz 10 with Pak38 as the latter was way too big. While I was updating the gun I also replaced the right hand on the figure loading the gun and the 50mm round (the figure was originally holding a flamethrower). Here are pictures of the old version and the new version.
Before
After
That's all for now. As always, any comments or feedback are appreciated.