Stug III (F1) - Mark Groth

This will be my "primary" build. It's Cyber Hobby's kit no. 6753. A nice metal barrel, tow cable, and PE are included, so my initial plan is to build it out-of-the-box with the exception of possibly substituting Fruil tracks.

I know I'll place it in some sort of a vignette but I usually wait for the inspiration to hit me as I'm building

A shot of the box top and assorted pieces:


The remainder of the kit contents:


Can't wait to get started!

Mark

All right Mark:

It looks great in the box . Now lets see you start gluing plastic together .

Gary

Hi Mark
I will be following of course!

Nice choice of subject and nice to see someone building a cyberhobby whitebox kit, instead of collecting them.

Sweeet This is one of the white box kits I doesn't have ! Has anyone else mentioned you look like a bearded Richard Gere ?

Jenny

Jenny . . . Richard Gere? Wow! Lemme go tell my wife she needs to up her game

Actually, waaaaay back in college (one decade or so this side of the Ice Age) a lot of people told me I looked like Elliott Gould, floppy moustache and all. Of course, that was before your time. Ahhhh, the '70s

Status pics coming soon on both my builds . . . it's been a busy two days.

Mark

'Twas a slow weekend at home so I got a jump on my F1. This is my first StuG III model so please be gentle in pointing out any noob foul-ups

I skipped Step 1 of the instructions as it simply covers the road wheels, drive sprockets, and idler wheels.

Step 2 begins with the insertion of all the torsion bars and accompanying caps. Not sure why I spent a lot of time on these as they won't be seen once the hull is attached. They do look cool, though!



Step 2 also covers the various suspension arms, stops, etc. and Step 3 the first steps on the rear hull which is constructed separately and then attached. Step 4 was skipped as it calls for the attachment of all the wheels from Step 1. However, I did attach the final drive covers and track tensioning apparatii to the hull. Here are close-ups of some of the detail from both the front left and the rear left:





Step 5 finishes construction of the rear of the hull and pulls it all together. Here are shots from above and below:





All in all, I'm very pleased with the detail in this kit so far.

Comments?

Mark

Hi Mark

A good tidy start.

One question if I may...

Have you left the suspension workable?

Simon

Hi Simon,

No, I did not leave the suspension workable. I glued everything down once it was true. Guess I'm looking at flat terrain for any vignette . . . that, or looking at some immense creativity.

I've moved on to construction of the superstructure. So far no issues at all, besides Dragon's proclivity for mis-identifying parts in the instructions.

Pics will follow shortly!

Mark

Hi Mark

Thanks for that. The nice thing with a lot of the DML kits is that you can articulate the suspension with a small modification. But they make it easy to keep the suspension neutral as well.

Simon

Mark

You are off to a great start. Is this the flamethrower version?

Yes, one of the ten IIIs to be armed with the Flammenwerfer. I believe there is only one picture remaining of any of these vehicles and it supposedly shows the conversion from a StuG III Ausf. F/8.

Mark

I ran across an issue when constructing the superstructure on my (F1). There is an arc-like opening in the roof, shown by the red arrow in the pic below. The instructions show no part to close it off and I've been through all the sprues checking and see none, either. There does appear to be some sort of wire cage included to go over it (as an option), but it would still be somewhat open. I have seen no pictures of this opening in any of my sources, nor any pics of the installed cage. I thought it was for a periscope, but the scissors periscope protrudes through the hatch to the rear of this opening. Can anyone tell me what this opening is for and if it should be closed off, and how?

Thanks!

Mark

Hi Mark

That slot is for the Gunners periscope sight, which is a different device to the Scissors telescope used by the vehicle Commander.

Simon

Thats right , what Simon says , let me have a look through my references for some piccis

Jenny

Hmmm... that's quite a problem you have there. I can think of three things

Fit the gunsight in there anyway as the flame projector would require some sort of aiming even at the short ranges that it would operate at.

Plate it over with a badly welded and colour mismatched piece.

Trawl the net and references looking for photos of de-gunned StuGs and use those as a starting point.

The cage was used to protect the site , it was only attached to the gunners hatch and not the hull . I will try and scan some more info this afternoon .

Jenny

Well I have only found one photomagraph ot the flamethrower variant and it does not appear to have the sight nor the cage fitted , I would say the gunners hatch would still have the hole and as 10 of the vehicle were made I would suggest that a patch would have been welded over it under the gunners insistence .

Jenny

Simon, Andy, and Jenny, thanks to you all for the valuable information re the sight opening. I did more research and came up with what you all suggested. It appears on the earlier models there was no opening. Then there was a rather large opening, followed by it being somewhat closed down on the later models to the "slit" that we see here.

I found the one photograph of the (F1) [Flammpanzer German Flamethrowers, 1941-45, Osprey New Vanguard No. 15] and since the photo is taken from a low angle one cannot see much of anything on the top of the hull. The same book has an artist's rendition of this vehicle and it shows the opening as just a black hole! So I can see why the kit doesn't address this point at all.

I've decided to go with the suggestion to just place a field-installed welded metal plate over the opening. Problem solved (but what actually went there will continue to bug me).

Oh, and I found no photos of any StuGs with the "cage" cover over the sight. I'd swear that I've seen one before, but can't find it now.

Again, thanks for your help!

Mark

Glad to help, albeit in a somewhat limited and inconclusive way.

Must admit my preferred option would be to plate the embrasure over, especially considering the paucity of photographs of the vehicles in question. But like you Mark, I will be forever bugged now with the question as to what actually went there...

Also, just like you, I'm convinced I've seen photos of the early StuGs with the gun site covered in mesh screen. No idea where of course so this is yet another mystery that will niggle at me, much like the oft quoted but never subsequently seen photograph of the Thunderbird taken in the in the late 1800s after it had been shot by a hunting party.

Hi Mark:

That is really a nice looking model. And the good vs evil of the gunners sight is that if there is no reference to say one way or another is that you can do what ever you want, and if someone says it is wrong, ask them to produce information disproving what you have done. So long as it is reasonable it should be good to go.

Gary

Well, I've mostly completed the upper hull and several issues/questions have arisen, naturally. Let's take it one section at a time.

Here are three photos of the main superstructure. Note that the antennae have not been added nor has the gun sight slit been plated off. No real problems with this section







On to the rear deck. The main issue here is the six holes (three each side) on the rear-most covers. These are obviously meant for mounting the extra road wheels shown in the photo of the actual (F1) but, although the instructions show the parts with the holes, no call-out is made nor shown for the road wheels themselves. A search of the extra sprues included with the kit turned-up the missing brackets and wheels and they have now been mounted. Problem solved







Off to the very front of the hull. You'll notice two things in the photo below. First, there are two MAJOR indentions on the top angled plate. This plate should be smooth so I'll need to reach for the putty later. Second, the lower angled plate has NO plate. The sole surviving photo of the actual StuG is under-exposed in that area so it is not possible to see if a plate went there, or not. The instructions and box art say "No" but I'm not so sure. That would leave a nice soft spot for enemy projectiles to find the enclosed fuel. A plate is included on one of the additional sprues so . . . decision delayed for now



The flame thrower itself. Hmmmmmm. Here's where it gets interesting. The parts included for the support mechanism bear no resemblance to the illustration in the instructions in either shape or size. Additionally, the roof/cover for the flame thrower was produced in PE with some wicked compound bends. After dry fitting the flame thrower mechanism to the superstructure I'm not sure the roof will go on without some major surgery to the mount. I think the only safe course at this point is to scratch build the roof out of thin plastic card prior to attempting all the bends. Here are some shots of the interior, mount, and flame thrower. Note that none of the seams or attachment points have been cleaned-up yet.









That's about it for now. As usual, all comments are welcome!

Mark

Hiya Mark:

It is looking real nice so far. A great looking build.

As far as the little speed bumps, it looks like you have most of them covered. The only one that I see you may want to think about is the front plates. In the first photo you show with the two big holes, those were for a set of lights that were mounted over the brake cooling fans. But they were deleted for the StuG FI. The one photo I have seen of the flamm variant shows these gone, and a fairly thick steel plate over the entire upper front glacis plate. It is a little set back from the front plate so it would still show those weld beads on the very front top area of the glacis. And there was a single light set in the center of that front top plate. So you shouldn't need any putty. Just a piece of sheet plastic cut to size and glued over the whole plate, thus covering those holes, unless Dragon actually has that part somewhere in the box, but it is just not shown on the instructions (a very real possibility with the terrible QC of Dragon instructions these days) . And as for the very front, it does indeed look like there is a piece that is not on your kit. I believe that there should be a plate on the very front that meets flush with that weld bead on the upper plate.

Gary

Mark, use part number D11 on the lower hull. This part is omitted in my F/8 instructions too.

For the top plate maybe use part D10 and shave the bolt detail off?

Andrew

Looking good and nice spots on the various problems and issues that Dragon have left for you. I agree with you that the lower glacis would have the extra armour plate fitted, really can't see anyone being comfortable in close proximity to all that fuel with only the original 30 mm plate as protection.