Sunday 29 January 2017

Bolt Action 1/72 Normandy StuG III

StuG III Ausf. F/8 (Sd.Kfz.142/1) at Belgrade Military Museum.
Author - Slaven Radovic. Source: WIkipedia
After my hiatus, I desperately need to get some painting practice. I don't want to jump straight back into my main project until I blow away some of the cobwebs on my brushes!

I had a good look through my stash and old project shelf for something that would ease me back into splashing on acrylics. Something that didn't need to be 'display quality' painting. Then I remembered my 1/72 Bolt Action project and that I had bought an Armourfast 'Easy Build' Stug III, ideal for a simple paint job.

The version of Armourfast's Stug III kit that I had was the older, original, model.
This was the 'earlier' version of the assault gun, without the upgraded side shields.
The kit itself - created especially for war gamers - is a pretty simple one with an uncomplicated level of detail, meaning there isn't a lot of fiddly parts to paint. In all, there are only 25 parts to the kit and the majority of the assault gun's design elements are moulded directly onto the main hull parts...


This uncomplicated model should allow me to concentrate on getting my painting mojo back, and without me getting too engrossed in minutia. Yet, it should turn out (unless I completely mess it up) good enough for use in my 1/72 Bolt Action gaming set.

Although the Stug III represented by this kit is an earlier version of the Stug (StuG III Ausf. F/8, I believe), without the spaced side-shield armour, this version of the Stug lingered on in use well into late war...

Sturmgeschütz III Ausf. F/8 coded “001” from Pz.Jg.Abt.61, 11th Panzer
Division, France, September 1944. Source: Unknown

The above colour scheme seems ideal for my purposes, as even though I may be a touch rusty I still think I may be able to pull this off. Certainly, the build poses no problems whatsoever, as it only takes five minutes to put the basic kit together...



Next: Too simple? Do I add at least a few pieces of stowage? We shall see...

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