PzJg38(t) Hetzer

 Continuing with my plan of painting all the stuff I printed ages ago and then forgot about — this time it's a 15mm (1:100) Hetzer, or to be pedantic, a PzJg38(t).

 I don't recall who designed the 3d model originally, nor how much fiddling around with it I did. There's an error with the track guides, which should be running either side of the road wheels and not down the centre of the track links, as they are here — I think that's probably my mistake.

I quite like the Hetzer. It's a very compact little bug-like thing. Apparently the ergonomics and survivability of the thing were appalling though, so I'm glad I never had to fight in one.

M22 Locust

 

The M22 Locust was a tiny tank designed and manufactured to a British specification by Marmon-Herrington for a light air-landable tank to support airborne troops. It was intended to replace the Tetrarch, and to be carried to the landing zone in a Hamilcar glider.

It was only ever used in combat once, at the crossing of the Rhine, and it did not acquit itself very well. Only two vehicles survived both the landing and a couple of days of combat.

Its poor showing was perhaps inevitable; it had very light armour and a puny 37mm main gun, and it was totally outmatched on the battlefields of 1944-45. So dissatisfied was the Parachute Regiment with its performance that after the action they reverted to their old Tetrarchs.

These models are 1:100 scale (15mm), from a 3d design by Windham Graves. The figure is one of PSC's 15mm plastic paras. 

Crusader 3

 

This is another FDM print I did some time ago, but unlike the Crusader 2 in my last post, this one was split latitudinally, both hull and turret, and printed in pieces sitting vertically on the build plate.

That gave me much better print quality, with the down-side that the gun, when printed vertically, was extremely weak. So I replaced it with a piece of brass.

I have more Crusader models in the collection, but in my view you can never have too many of them. 

Once again, the scale is 1:100 (15mm).

Crusader 2

 

I found this FDM print I did some years ago and decided to do something with it.

The Crusader is maybe the worst possible choice for FDM printing, with all its gently sloping plates. The layer lines are pretty hideous, but from a distance on the table it looks okay. I guess.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Caunter scheme: I love to look at it, but I hate painting it.

The Crusader 2 only overlapped with the Caunter scheme by a few months, but there were a few — a very few — that were painted in it for Operation Crusader.

As usual, scale is 1:100 (15mm)

Dingo

 

Here's a spot of recce capability for my 15mm North Africa / Mediterranean WWII Brits, a cute little Daimler Dingo armoured car.

The base model, as is so often the case, is by Bergman. I've just added a couple of crewmen and some more detailed wheels. I don't think there would be much point in any further refinement than that for my purposes.

As always, all the 3d modelling has been done in Blender. 

Printing went well enough, though one of them had an incomplete starboard-front wheel for some reason — I have no idea why, because all three were identical on the build-plate. Hey-ho. I just printed some spare wheels and glued one into the space I chopped out of the incomplete model.

I'm not all that happy with the colour these have ended up; it's rather too dark for North Africa, and completely wrong for Normandy. Maybe they'll do for Italy.