Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Military Modelling Vol.44 No.5

The Krupp Steyr Waffenträger was one of several parallel projects to produce a self-propelled mount for the powerful 8.8cm PaK 43 anti-tank gun, that could be swiftly manufactured adapting components from existing stock. The Krupp Steyr proposal utilised components from the RSO tractor incorporated into a thinly armoured chassis, with a partially enclosed turret to give the crew protection from shell fragmentation and small arms fire. Only one prototype of the Krupp Steyr Waffenträger was completed and it was sent for technical evaluation at the Hillersleben Proving Ground. Trumpeter's 1:35 scale kit (item 01598) was built straight from the box, apart from adding an electrical conduit made of copper wire for the Notek light, and some fine chain for the stern towing block from Trumpeter's 06624 40cm Chains Set. I constructed the model the same way I would build an aircraft kit. Substantial amounts of painting and weathering of the hull interior and open top turret has to be completed before the hull and turret basket are assembled. There is a lot of work preparing the hull interior for priming and painting. Numerous ejector pin marks have to be filled with modelling putty. I chose to fill all of them, just in case any were visible after the hull and turret had been assembled. To ease production, Trumpeter has moulded the front spaced armour solid. It was a simple task to open up this area, using a drill and a craft knife. A minor problem encountered during construction of the kit was a slight amount of warping on the two suspension arms, parts A4. However, emersion in hot water and some gentle pressure soon corrected the problem.

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