Stug IIIG Upper Hull with Concrete Armour from Panzer Art

Stug IIIG Upper Hull with Concrete Armour from Panzer Art

Item No. RE35-080
Scale 1:35

Panzer Art are a company in Poland producing aftermarket accessories for armour from the Second World War onwards, plus diorama accessories.

The box contains a new superstructure as one piece of resin, plus some T34 and Winterketten tracks also resin. The pieces are free of air bubbles and with very little flash. I used a Dragon Stug III Ausf G to mount the new Panzer Art superstructure, kit no. 6365.


Comparing the roof of the kit superstructure and resin counterpart, it's clear that the Dragon part was used as a master as the details not covered in concrete are identical (including ejection pin marks on the interior roof). The resin part is a little softer but still not bad. The concrete looks pretty good with a realistic texture, not overdone. You could add some chips and cracks yourself quite easily.

I partially built the Dragon Stug to test fit the new superstructure. There are no directions with the Panzer Art kit, although the conversion seems straightforward. A casting block has to be cut off the rear of the superstructure, and the opening for the gun has to be cut out, all pretty easy.


A bit of trimming and sanding was needed around the bottom and interior edges to get the new resin part to fit snuggly onto the Dragon hull and fenders; however the hatches from Dragon fit onto the superstructure with no trouble.


The Dragon Stug is a nice kit with a fighting compartment interior, so the next step was to see if it would all fit inside the new structure. Fitting the resin part over the gun and breach was not easy but can be done if the gun is fully elevated, and the floor to which the gun is mounted is not glued into the hull. Fitting the gun mantlet is another trial, but with patience it can be done also. In this photo you can see through the hatch way, that there is room for the breech guard. It all goes together and fits well, just don't glue any of the main components together until you have to.


I'm looking forward now to finishing my Stug with it's concrete mantle!

Highly recommended.

Thanks Panzer Art for the review sample.

Hi John

This looks a very neat conversion, thanks for the review.

Simon

Excellent review and I am sure that this will give a very distinctive looking Stug to all who are interested !

Jenny

Simon and Jenny, you're most welcome!

Cheers
JT

John,
That's pretty cool looking. Can't wait to see it finished.
Shawn

Hey JT, did you ever finish this StuG? I'd like to see it if you did.

John is no longer with the site anymore Chris

Simon

Thank you Simon, I did not know that. He must have been a really really bad monkey then huh?