AFV/17 July/August 04 14/6/04 3:07 pm Page 24

By Rudi Meir

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A
fter buying the excellent daytrip, so the idea for building the model base to start working from. I lengthed the
Schutzenpanzer book from Ryton I was shelved until I met Pekka Toivonen a back of the lower hull 5 mm with
saw a vehicle in it that was Finnish modeller at Euromilitaire. plasticcard and reversed the angle of the
completly new to me, it was a 250 NEU Earlier that year he had taken some back plate from 15° inwards to 15°
with a 5 cm PAK mounted on top. It had an pictures of the vehicle, I was ready to kiss outwards, the bottom sides were filled in
instant appeal to me and has everything to him but luckily he was more than happy with 1 mm thick plastic card. Next step
build into a great looking model. I always with a pint ! was fitting the upper hull, I cut off the
look for a challenge to start a model and When the pictures arrived I was a little entire hull only leaving the engine deck and
this one had it all, be it in the paintjob or in disappointed as there were only three replaced everything else with thin plastic
the building. pictures from the interior but they were sheet as the Dragon parts are too thick.
Having already build the 251/22 Pakwagen excellent quality. The pictures show all the The first problem I found was with the roof
using the CMD conversion I really wanted gunmount detail I needed to build the which seems not to be correct in the Ryton
to have a go at it’s smaller brother. mount but for the rest the interior was drawings, in the pictures of the real vehicle
The only trouble was that in the Ryton completely empty, no floor no driver’s you can see that the roof was cut out
book there were no pictures, just some seat…nothing, only rubbish between the round and not straight as in the book. This
drawings Using the drawings from the suspension parts. There were still a lot of was to allow the upper hull to be bolted
book it should be possible to build the unanswered questions but I decided to against the bulkheads which were welded
lengthed chassis but I had absolutely no start building anyway and see how the to the lower hull. The in-progress pictures
idea on how the gun was mounted to the details would be worked out later. will show what I mean.
vehicle. The next problem was the front floor, the
After about six months of asking friends Construction front bulkhead and drivers position which
and surfing the net I found out there was To build the vehicle I used the Dragon were detailed with the excellent Aber set
only one surviving vehicle left in the 250/1 kit 6100 and the 5 cm PAK gun kit (35073 ). Now problem number two came
Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade in former 6118. I started with reversing the angle of up - there is no room for the fuel tank in
Yugoslavia. A bit too far away for a quick the back armoured plate, this gave me the the fighting compartment. This is normally

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fitted in the rear under the radio as it would to stow the ammo? After checking my
not be possible to operate the gun this reference the PAK 38 shells were almost
way. the same size and diameter as those in
So again after numerous E-mails and the stummel which has the 7.5 cm KWK 37
telephone calls the consensus was that the gun. Again Aber came to the rescue, in the
fueltank could have been mounted stummel set ( 35074 ) you get the choice
beneath the floor as is the case with the of two ammo boxes I took the rectangular
sdkfz 10 Demag with the same chassis. box and it fitted perfectly under the gun
This was good news to me, saved me the mount so my guesswork paid off.
work of building another one. A new floor There’s no other place in the back of the
was made from plastic sheet and covered vehicle to stow the shells because of the
with Aber’s floor plate set 35A87. gun’s recoil. An alternative could be to
With the floor in place the upper hull was stow the loose shells in their canisters
temporarily taped to the lower hull with under the gun, but in my opinion it would
Tamiya tape. I now started building the gun not have been an easy task to get a shell
mount. As I had no measurements it took out of it’s casing in such a cramped
a lot of test fitting before a satisfying result vehicle. So an ammobox sounded more
was achieved. I had to build the basic logical . I also scratchbuilt a rack on the
shape of the gun to determine its correct right side that could hold six ready to use
height in relation to the top of the hull. As rounds just as in the Stummel using the
you can see there are a lot of if’s and but’s Aber part as a template. A foldable
but I think the overall appearance the gunner’s seat was also made on the left
vehicle looks correct. side from leftover brass parts with a seat
made from Magic Sculp.
Last but not the least problem was where All the smaller bits and pieces were now

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added to the interior. The gun itself was the

easiest part of the conversion, it was built
as per instructions and detailed up with
Aber set 35096. The hardest part here was
the gunshield which was a bit fiddly to
assemble but after some swearing and
two pots of coffee they fitted together
nicely. The undercarriage of the gun and
the rest of the PE parts were fed to my
hungry scrapbox.

After three weeks of frantic gluing and

soldering the interior was now ready for
painting, but more on that later. After the
upper and lower halves were mated
together with superglue the upper hull was
detailed with all the little rivets I’d lost with
sanding, also welding beads were made
from stretched sprue. On front of the
vehicle an armoured air intake cover was
made, on the pictures of the real vehicle
only a rectangular slit is seen but over this
the cover was fitted.

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I found more reference on the vehicle in Before I forget, I always mix in about 20%
the German model magazine Hobby Fan, I clear into the paint to get an eggshell finish
believe the August 1985 issue, which as I don’t like dead flat paintjobs.
clearly shows the cover. The 250 NEU was Detail painting, washes, filters on the
prone to overheating, that’s why late in the interior were all the same as the exterior.
war these covers were fitted. The vehicle I’ve been wanting to do a hard edge camo
was now virtually finished. The last things for some time now but never felt brave
to be added were the suspension and enough, this had to be the one!
tracks. Because of the extra weight of the A late war vehicle like this one is just crying
gun it sounded natural to me that the out for a hard edge, but how?
vehicle would be as low to the ground as A hard edge scheme needs careful
possible, which was a breeze thanks to preparation - just taping off the vehicle is
Dragon’s engineering which supplies the guaranteed fail as it never comes out the
suspension arms as separate parts. way you want. So I took some photocopies
After painting the tracks were fitted, these from the Ryton book, a box of crayons and
came from the excellent WW II started colouring like a six year old until I
Productions range. These tracks are truly had a camo scheme that I liked (in the
amazing, clean up and assembly took no appropriate colours of course !).
more than two hours, you just click them Now it was just a matter of duplicating it
together and they stay fully workable! The onto the model, easier said than done.
outer sprockets are also included with First the model was painted with a mix of
three separate hub covers which gives you 50% dark yellow and buff and was allowed
the choice between early and late to dry for 24 hours. Then the model was
sprockets. It’s the first time I’ve used them taped with Tamiya tape, panel by panel so
but it certainly won’t be the last. they could easily be removed afterwards
and the contours of the camo was then
And that’s it! Not that difficult to build but drawn on with a pencil.
very hard to find the correct info. I could After this was done the tape was removed
have gone a little bit further and added an and cut with a new sharp blade on a
engine or opened up some side doors, but cutting mat, then the parts that were to
I was already way over budget on this one. stay yellow were taped off with the
Everything was now glued to Lego blocks corresponding pieces of tape.
and cocktail sticks in preparation to the The green camo XF 67 nato green was
next step. now painted on, was again left to dry for a
day and again taped off before the last
Painting colour XF 68 nato brown was added.
Before painting started I cleaned off the After three days I was anxcious to see the
model with some methanol to get rid of all result, and everything looked fine after the
the dirt and grime that built up during tape was removed. In some places the
construction, I just use a soft round brush paint had built up against the tape but this
for this dipped in methanol. Works fine for was easily removed with a short bristled
me. brush. A little bit of careful scrubbing did
For airbrushing I always use Tamiya the job.
acrylics I’m used to working with these It was now time to do some serious
paints and feel very comfortable with weathering, I started by giving the model a
them. I am experimenting with Vallejo wash with raw umber oil paint mixed with
paints now and they look very promising 20% burnt sienna. The three camo colours
but are a bit hard to find here in Belgium. were now drybrushed separately with
As said before the interior was painted Humbroll colours that were a close match
first, I’m a fan of pre shading so it was to the Tamiya paint namely matt 150
painted with semi gloss black X 18, a green, matt 113 brown and matt 148
second coat with XF 60 dark yellow went which is an off white colour. The first two
over this, with the black showing only at colours were lightened a bit with some
the edges. A third coat XF 57 buff was matt 81 yellow.
used to highlight the panels a bit . After this had dried a day or two a few

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filters were applied with Humbrol matt 93 like tools and so on are now painted. some extra detail added, like brakelines
and 94 to further lighten up the vehicle. The last step was to add some of the and some nuts and bolts just to make it
To let the detail stand out more I gave the wonderful MIG pigments, great stuff! After look more interesting.
vehicle a second pinwash, this time more adding the gun and tracks the model was
controlled only around rivets, hinges and now FINALLY finished! All this was now pushed in the still soft
so on. groundwork and left to dry overnight. The
The vehicle was now drybrushed a second For displaying the model I opted for a following day the vehicle was placed on
time with the same mixture as before but small wooden base about 5 cm high. As the groundwork until I had a satisfying
this time I added some white oil paint. This the vehicle is not that big it needed a position, I wanted to place the vehicle on
gives a more subtle effect, and I only did somewhat higher base just to make it an angle to give a better view inside the
the panel edge’s and small details like stand out. I kept the base as small as model. The space under the vehicle was
toolclamps, rivets and hinges. At this stage possible to enhance the size of the vehicle, filled up with bricks, these were then glued
I applied the decals, these all came from also this way it got a more dramatic feel. I to the base with white glue mixed with
Archer, since I had some nasty experience used Porion for the groundwork in which I water. To make the vignette complete two
with these drydecals peeling off after pushed some homemade bricks, far better Warrior figures ( WA 35253 ) were added
washing the vehicle, I now only apply them than the commercially available stuff AND these were used unaltered, I find them to
after most of the painting has been done. a lot cheaper. Just mix up some plaster fit perfect to the scene.
An alternative would be to seal them in and pour it into a 2 mm high flat mould,
with a coat of matt varnish. scrape off the excess when it starts to And that’s it ! Another one for the
harden and let it dry further for 45 minutes collection. After the initial problem as
I was now ready for the most time and then scribed in the brickwork lines with where to find info on the vehicle it was fun
consuming step - paintchipping. For this I a nail or something similar (really high all the way and a learning experience .
use a mixture of Humbrol matt 113 and flat tech!). I also got some texture into the Thanks to Pekka Toivonen for kickstarting
black. With a fine pointed brush they were bricks with scraping and tapping a metal me and Marijn van Gils for the tips and
all handpainted one by one, also scuff brush over it. After the plaster had support.
marks were painted on the green and completely dried overnight, then just snap
brown camo so the basic yellow showed off the bricks you need, easy.
trough at places. By adding more or less A sort of crane was also made from
thinner to the paint you can change the Evergreen plastic strip and parts from the
consistency of the paint giving more ever handy scrapbox. This was done to get
translucent paintchips which is just the some height into the vignette. I also had
effect that I was looking for. All small detail built a Tamiya DKW 350 motorbike with

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