The Panzer IV was a staple for the German's in WWII with over 8,500 built in various configurations, and one of the best tanks produced. This build would even out my Bolt Action armor with three allied and three German pieces.
But why am I posting another Bolt Action build??? Each time I put on my modeler pants I find something new or a technique I want to explore. This "Puppy" is not different, besides I was looking forward to building a plastic kit once more as my two previous builds posted in this Blog were solid resin without much assembly required. Click on either of the following two links to view the resin builds. (Lulubelle)(M7 Priest). In terms of building a model kit I was not disappointed.
Three Sprue Trees of parts - great! The instructions; however, were wordless schematics that require a bit of trial and error dry fitting before adding any glue. At least the cover sheet makes this clear and recommends a lot of dry fitting. This approach is also necessary due to the number of options involved in selection of the P IV version you want to end up with.
And Awaaay We GO! After attaching the drive and idler wheel halves I tried a rough black application to make the solid bogie wheels look duel. As you will see later, this process could have been eliminated - I tried!
Two piece treads were easily applied to the wheel assemblies and they then attached to the two piece hull, but there was a minor fit issue....
Notice the gap on the left. The two ends were glued with thin cement and then Cyano gel applied and held for a couple of minutes to lock down the warped center.
All of the armor plates, spare wheels, jerry cans, etc. etc. along with the two piece turret and double brake gun have been put together, but the reason for this photo and the next is the first decision point. A closed hatch.................
...........or Open? As you will see, open was my choice.
Now for choice number two - I added the extra turret armor which, along with the double spare wheel rack shown above and the position of rear antenna designates this version as Ausf G or mid- H. Recall the wartime photo at the start of this post?
I don't like the scale thickness or the bulky attachments for the Schurzen armor plates so despite the 10 extra points in Bolt Action I opted for the Ausf G (I can always tack them on in the future😁).
Here is fit issue number two. The turret armor is attached in accordance with instruction and as the parts go together, but there is not supposed to be a gap at the back end. I used my Loctite gel (took three applications) to fill the gap and sand it down. The result is shown later. Again notice the antenna rear left - rather thick in scale? Well, I took care of that in a rather inadvertent way as I thought would happen........
.........I snapped it off during the trip to the spray booth - AHHHH! Do I resort to my oft used thin gauge wire or something else. Brother Bob commented that he had seen folks use plastic broom bristles which gave me an idea.
Our trusty potato scrubbing brush. I snipped off the remnant antenna, pinned drilled the lug, snipped off a brush bristle and glued it in - right length and right diameter - Whoo Hoo! Best of all - Flexible - no breaking or bending and straightening!
See? And the armor seam is closed too as noted above. Now let's get it weathered and camouflaged.
First up, my trusty flat black and thinner wash. the thinned black flows nicely in panel lines and depressions using a fine tipped brush.
Then the eyeliner makeup sponges - yep - the Mrs. ordered them and they come in multiple colors. I opted for Blue - very manly! But they are great when using Tamiya Weathering Master or paint. I like a more free form (the crew applied in the field look) camo.
As I proceeded I would add more color here and there, but first I wanted to get some decals in place. When assessing the decals included with the kit I found that they were a bit too large - usable - but not the look I wanted so I scrounged in my reserves and pulled out the sheet from my Marder III (click this link to see that build😁 - Marder ). There were plenty to choose from. There were two sizes of Balken crosses and enough numbers to do what I had seen in historical photos and this is what resulted.
The Marder sheet included Afrika Corp designation.(Brother Bob, so notified me). I just thought they looked nice so I used them even though I was not necessarily interested in Afrika Corp. units. Although since I have Lulubelle (M3 Lee) they can face off in the Sahara (see the Lulubelle link at the start of this post)!
I also carefully modified one of the these by nipping off the palms in order that I could try placing it on the pocket of the commander, like an Iron cross pocket ribbon. Speaking of the Commander...
I drilled and added a wire to the bust for ease of handling while painting. I first primed him white. I then mixed gray with blue for the jacket and hat, but added simple gray as shadowing. The other colors are obvious (except for the eyes, which are blue), but I believe you can make out the Afrika Corp decal I put on the pocket.
Not too bad I think. With the wire in place I also thought it would be nice to have a more "dynamic" figure, so I drilled the inside of the hatch,.........
.........snipped off the wire leaving enough to insert and.........
a rotating commander
Ok, here are my current forces lined up!
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