Wirbelwind

 

Back on the ground again, and this time I'm working on a 1:100 (15mm) Flakpanzer Wirbelwind, mounting a 20mm Flakvierling. Mr. Bergman has given us a 37mm Ostwind, but this particular flakpanzer has been lacking until now. At least, as far as I've found.

The hull is taken from a Panzer IV-J (by Bergman I think). I've added a bit of detail refinement, and replaced the running gear with some by TigerAce1945. The crew are some figures I sculpted some time ago, and the turret and flakvierling are done from scratch, using one of the Bradford 1:72 drawings as reference. The armament is done pretty much by guess and memory; it's not all that visible in this scale, so I haven't busted a gut over accuracy. We'll see just how much that gnaws at me.

If I wanted to do a version with the guns elevated in their AA role, I'd have to completely redesign them. That's maybe a task for another day.

I might tinker with it a bit more, but it's in a usable state now.

2024-02-03

I reverted to a somewhat simplified running gear module as it would be easier to print, and would still look decent enough on the table top in this small scale.

I extracted the original running gear from the Pz.IV hull and set to work on it.

As usual, I discovered that it would have been more straightforward (and probably quicker) to have just built it from scratch, but by the time I decided on that I was too far through the process to stop and start over. Hey-ho.

I made a set with some track face detail as well.

Whether it's worth the trouble of printing it or not remains to be seen.

2024-02-05

Here's a comparison shot: the red primed vehicle on the right has running gear modules with just plain bars to indicate track links, while the raw grey resin one has some more indented detail.

The more detailed tracks definitely look better close up, but at tabletop distances there's not a lot to choose between them. The little nubbins running around the edges of the tracks are more visually important in suggesting links than the face detail.

In future, unless the track run is more exposed, I don't think it's really worth the extra effort to detail the track link faces. However, I've done this one now, so I might as well use it.