Model Armour

Deano Raines' blog of one of the first Orange Box kits from Dragon!

I started this kit as soon as it landed on my doorstep from Vinnie and ModelArmour but then immediately became sidetracked and then it took me two months to get back to the bench with it.

The build is straight out of the box so I can only scratch things or use raw materials to add extra detail if required (and it is required, being of slightly older vintage!) Also supplied with the kit is a bonus figure set, which again, I may have a go at...straight from the box, i.e. no Hornet heads! I was up for the challenge and hoped I could turn out a good model!

Starting off with a brief history...
In late 1942, German designers started the development of more powerful and slightly larger version of Panther mounted on a newly designed chassis. In January of 1943, Adolf Hitler agreed on the development of Panther with increased armour protection especially for the needs of the Eastern Front. This project was designated Panther (2) II and its design was planned along with the development of Tiger II. In February of 1943, it was decided that Panther II, in its design would resemble Tiger II and would have many common components such as: tracks, transmission, suspension and roadwheels. Both designs had common components in an attempt to standardize the production. Overall dimensions were very similar to those of Panther Ausf G. Hull’s design was very similar to that of the late model Panther Ausf G but with many modernizations such as the arrangement of observation equipment and new engine deck. Its armour protection was significantly increased if compared to any other Panther variant produced. Side armour protection was 60mm thick while frontal armour protection was 100mm thick. It was planned to arm Panther II with the latest 75mm KwK 42 L/100 or even 88mm KwK 43 L/71 (without muzzle break) gun mounted in newly designed narrow turret - Schmalturm (designed by Rheinmetall in 1944 and to be produced by Daimler-Benz).

In early 1944, MAN (Maschinenfabrik Augsburg-Nuremberg) was allowed to produce two prototypes but was only able to produce one in early 1945, without newly designed Schmalturm turret. On May 4th of 1944, it was realized that German industry was unable to start Panther II’s production and this project was abandoned in favour of further development of Panther Ausf G/F based on lessons learned from Panther II. On June 3rd of 1944, all companies which were to produce Panther II, were ordered to start the production Panther. Since turret’s design was never completed, for test purposes prototype Panther II was fitted with newly built Ausf.G turret (built in March/April of 1945) armed with 75mm KwK 42 L/70 gun and with special mountings for infrared device and telescopic range finder. It is possible that it was used in combat but there are no records of it, while some sources state that the Ausf.G turret was fitted by the Americans after the chassis was captured.

 

 

Here's the kit box...just in case you had forgotten what it looked like!

 

 

Now as usual I started off with the suspension swing arms, which were easy enough to fix...except I made a mistake with those when I first started the kit. I know its such a simple affair.....so how could I get that wrong? Let's just say I was distracted at the time! Anyway its all been fixed as it should be so I wont go into to much detail about the faux pas!

 

 

 

Next was fitting the rear wall plate, and there were no problems here at all. I always leave the detailed parts off of the build until the final fit is done and dusted. I'm quite a panic merchant in this area as on previous builds I've had to tussle with the final fit and as a result I've knocked parts off. If you've had experiences with Dragon's newer Panther kits then you will see that most of the detail is already moulded on to the larger parts of this kit. With this in mind I think I will have to add more detail where I can and if I can!

 

 

So as usual with me it was a dry fit of the upper hull next and all is well.I was actually surprised at the fit as Ive heard such horror stories about it but its all good so far.
I have started to take some of the moulded detail off in replace for some wire and stuff so once I have some results with that then I will update the blog

 

 

Well more progress at last...starting off with the roadwheels and sprockets.

 

 

As you can see above, the road wheels come in three parts consisting of two roadwheel halves and a hub. This was the first time I had come across this assembly on any of my KT builds which reminds me of how good the latest kits are now.
No problems at all here...the fit was very good with just a little more clean up than usual.

 

 

The drive sprockets were a simple affair with two halves and again a great fit with a little clean up as well. Overall the running gear was as straightforward as it should be with these big cats.

 

 

 

Here's where the fun started...check out the pin marks on the link above. Loads of clean up to do with the tracks plus they were a fiddly assembly, as I will show later on in the build.

 

So with me being somewhat of a scatter builder, at this point I jumped onto the turret!

 

 

This is one of a couple of photo's that I would be working from with the turret. As you can see, there are what appear to be, sight holes drilled through the range finders. In the next picture you will see that the kit parts have none so that's something I will need to sort out.

 

 

 

Again most of the more detailed pieces are already moulded onto the main turret shell. Even the cupola was moulded on which I was a little disappointed with, but just shows how much Dragon have moved on from this kit with their engineering.

 

 

The MG Kugelblende is a one piece moulded part so it's not up to the standard we are all accustomed to in modern kits. As you can see it is very shiny and lacks the weld seam that would fix it to the front glacis...

 

 

I rolled out some standard Milliput as thin as I could which took quite a bit of patience with all the breakages however...

 

 

I was quietly pleased with it being my first weld seam ever! There were still some other seams to be incorporated into the kit but this was my test run.

 

 

Next up was the headlight cable which had a nasty moulded on piece ...again! So I removed that part and replaced it with fuse wire.

 

 

I think this looks much better and didn't take much time to do at all. Whilst I was there I roughed up the fender a little. I scraped and thinned the underside with a sharp blade and softened it up with some cement. After which I shaped it the way I wanted it to look...

 

 

Also while I was working on the front of the Panther I decided to chop the right fender off...

 

 

I always like to give the impression of a battle hardened AFV, so I much prefer this look. Also with the amount of work that's going to go into the tracks then I wouldn't mind being able to see a little of them!

 

 

Back to the turret and I added the weld seams to the range finders. Just using the same process before with the Milliput.

 

 

In the outlined box below, you can see another pre-moulded piece which should look like flat metal angled up from the edge of the turret. You will have to excuse me for not knowing the proper name for this part or its purpose! Anyhow, this didn't look right so I went to work on it...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a sharp blade I carefully removed this piece and thinned it down. After I re-attached it the result was much more like the real thing.

 

 

I painted the interior of the lower hull red oxide and joined the hull parts with little fuss at all. In fact it was a very good fit as these things go!

 

 

This kit lacked texture in certain areas mainly where there should be cast metal texture. So on with the Mr.Surfacer 500 which worked out ok...

 

 

So with the hull parts joined it was time to start adding the detailed parts...

 

 

 

The rear plate was almost complete, having textured the mufflers and damaged the stowage bin, with all that was left was to fit the smaller pieces.

 

 

 

 

Time to begin the figures!

 

 

As you can see the belt buckles were very poor indeed, and under normal circumstances I would be reaching for the PE...but this build was strictly out of the box?

 

 

 

Back into the final straight of the main build...

 

 

There are quite a few modifications that I have made...drilled through the spare track hangers to receive fixing pins made of fuse wire...Thinned down the back of the Schurzen rail in order to get some true scale and...as you have noticed damage......moved the cleaning rod tube to the rear engine deck by scratching some mounting brackets made of plastic card...and also found that the hull flat bar was missing in some places to receive the OVM tools, so I added plastic card where required.

 

 

 

As you can see in this picture I have drilled the proper sight holes out on the range finders.

 

 

So before painting can begin...weld seams on the front glacis using Milliput...fix the remaining tools to the hull...fix the PE grills on the engine deck and fit all the finer plastic parts, i.e. grab handles, lifting hooks and the MG barrel.

 

So whilst getting ready to apply paint to the beastie it was back almost back to the figures...but first....I decided on fixing two spare wheels to the turret just because I wanted to and it adds a bit more interest to the finish...

 

 

I have to admit at cheating here with the barrel! The kit barrel was all made up and ready to go for the clean up but it rolled off my desk while I was distracted. Anyhow...I put my size nine through it and broke the barrel in three places...well if your going to do it then do it in style! So after the ex- did her destruction derby in my modelling loft, (another story for another day) I decided to salvage what I could from the carnage. Therefore I stripped all the turned barrels from my broken models which gave me two late KT barrels. All I had to do was take off the muzzle brake and drill down the aluminium barrel. Pain in the neck but I got there in the end!

Of course I could of written off to Dragon requesting a new barrel, but I didn't want to stall this build any further at this point.

 

 

 

Some more finished build pics, by the way, I always fit the tracks after the base coat and stuff so there is still some pain to come!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With this part of the build complete I can now sum up what I thought about the kit. Well it's an old kit, as we are all aware of with it being an Orange box release, so the moulding is not up to the usual modern Dragon standard. Some of the original OVM tools are just unusable which is why Dragon gives you a more up to date bonus set with moulded clasp handles. The track links have some outrageous pin marks on them that are going to take some sanding.

On the other hand I was really surprised by the way this went together. I've heard some horror stories about this kit but didn't encounter any? The fit was good with some minimal warping which disappeared when the hull parts were joined. Some of the detail was good, and in all I enjoyed the build!

Materials used to add further detail whilst on a budget were; Milliput, plastic card, fuse wire, Mr.Surfacer, mini drill set and some elbow grease!

Back to the painting! I decided on the scheme to use, which would be a splinter scheme. The base coat of OG is on after which I would try the scheme out on the turret to see how it looked. I started off with pre-shading of Tamiya Nato black. After which it was sprayed Tamiya OG followed by a lighter mix of OG for highlighting the panels and stuff. I would be leaving the barrel red oxide along with a few of the wheels too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then masked the turret up and tried out the splinter camouflage scheme.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The masking up of the main hull in two stages took about three hours in all, so it wasn't a quick process...

 

 

 

So with the camouflage done I now moved back onto the road wheels and got them ready to be fixed in place. Then after that I moved onto drybrushing, chips, scratches and markings of which I used the dry rub down type.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Managed to get the wheels on in preparation for starting the tracks...

 

 

So with the wheels on I moved back to the camouflage. I really wanted to break up the block colours as they were just to.......blocky? I used a lightened jar of OG for dry brushing which did the job quite well making it look more faded and weathered. Then I would do heavier chips using this mixture and try and get the Panther ready to apply some filters.

 

 

 

It was now time for the tracks that I had been dreading. The reason being the amount of clean up required...but anyway I made a start on them...

 

 

The instructions are straight forward enough but no mention of the 2 hour clean up required...

 

 

I broke the parts out into three bundles and the tiny cross-link parts were too small to have laying about so stored them in a jar until the assembly.

 

 

 

The assembly went very well indeed and even although I thought I would have problems shaping them they moved without fuss. The tracks were now complete and ready for painting...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In preparation for applying a gloss coat, I painted all the wooden handles and Jack block in Vallejo Dark Flesh. On the main vehicle I continued on with some OG dry brushing to wear down the camouflage a little. Also the chips and scratches have been done along with the graphite in places.

 

 

I gave this Panther II the markings 01 of the SS Hilterjugend.

 

 

Having had a look at all the figures that came with this kit, I had to make a few changes to what I was going to use with the vehicle! I wouldn't be using Hornet heads for the build, but I do like the finish of a drilled out neck (if you know what I mean?). So I got the old brain racking and remembered what Vinnie does with the figures hands...so why not do it on a neck? Here's the result! Fixing sprue branches to the base of the heads did take some time but I'm happy with the result instead of sticking the heads directly onto the shoulders.

 

 

Here's one dry fitted. I found that doing this does unlock a lot of options when building your figures, e.g. getting the pose needed for the finish you're after, and being able to turn the heads to suit is so much easier!

 

 

That's all the heads dry fitted and ready for painting!

 

 

 

It was at this point that I discovered that the tacks were on the wrong sides. They were such a pain, that they were going to stay that way....besides, it wasn't unheard of on real vehicles!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The figure is one of MiniArt's SPG crew, which are such versatile figures. I will be buying more of these at some point. I decided to give him a helmet as it's an urban kind of scene. Also I'm going with the 'its late war anything goes' school of modelling on this one!

 

 

 

I had mainly painted all the rust/dirt streaks in oils followed with oil washes. Next I would paint the wood grain, leaving that to dry and then begin the dark dry-brushing.

 

 

I added some dry mud...

 

 

I thought I would try some products I had that I hadn't used properly yet. E.g. Lifecolors weathering glazes. They seemed to work very well as a medium for Mig's pigments and I would be trying this method again...

 

 

This time around it was the earth colour so I still have a few more to try out.

 

 

 

Added the antennae...but from the photo below I think I should straighten them up a little!

 

 

The pigments I usually use for tracks are African Earth, darkened down with Russian Earth. This time around I tried an experiment using Standard Rust Pigment darkened down with Rubble Dust, which is more red than usual...

 

 

I had now added some Rubble Dust to the exterior, prior to a matt coat and then after the matt coat I added European Dust.

 

 

 

 

I thought I'd try out adding my Lifecolor Earth glaze again. This time added on top of the previous process which involved the Earth glaze followed by Mig's Russian Earth and Dark Mud. When I initially applied this I got a little worried...

 

 

But after an hour it started to look much better and I quite liked the effect. I think some more pigments on top of this would be just the job!

 

 

 

 

Still weathering....

 

 

 

 

 

Finished! This was actually the first build I had completed in six months!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I enjoyed this build! Even though the brief was to build it out of the box to show what could be done with an 'Orange Box' releases, I found it very entertaining. I have heard a lot of criticism of this kit on various modelling sites, and don't see what all the fuss is for...as with a bit of work it does build into a very nice model.

Thanks to Vinnie and MA for letting me build the kit and thanks to all the guy's that joined in on the original blog!

 

Deano's original Photo Feature can be found here:

 

Panther II