Go for it Sam!!

Hi Sam, good choice for a build, i will be following this one, and if the kit looks good enough I may have to make room amongst the other cats i have on the shelve. i am just finishing up one of my Michael Whitman versions now. Do you know if they came out with a PE kit for it yet?

It is the same tank and building. Apparently the Panther ran into the building with the turret traversed thereby poking a hole in the wall "before". You can see the repaired brick work in the photo where the turret is turned to the right. That and the debris is cleaned up indicating the "after" photo of the same "accident".

QUOTED TEXT - "Herbert - you're always diving into threads and telling us how this or that isn't accurate etc. and commenting on guys' builds. And yet you never show us any of your own work. If your modelling skills are on anything like the same level as your detailed knowledge of the "big cats", your work would be a treat to see.

Or are you more of a theorist than a practitioner?"

- Steve Riley


Herbert - The gauntlet thrown down by Steve Riley yesterday still seems to be on the ground. Are you going to pick it up?

Gary Needham

How about we just focus on Sam's new model? It'll be fun to watch him work his magic on a kit.

Matt

Its 553pm here in Melbourne, Australia - just got in the door.. and YES its here.. and its a beaut!

Im feverishly opening the box, pics to follow (of the kit, not me opening the box!)!

I cant speak highly enough of Rainbow 10's service, truly excellent, 5 days Japan to my door.
SD

I´m already drooling all over laptop and waiting for pics.... Beside that CH´s Flak T-34, which I already have, 2 to be exact, this is the other kit I´ve been waiting for. Sure must buy. No need to buy CMK´s resin conversion...

Well Matt, once there's something in plastic on our screens to actually focus on, I'd agree with you.

But as of yet, no magic has been woven (Sam's only just opened the box), and for others to nit-pickover the box art is - to my mind at least - a tad churlish.

- Steve

Hi all,

Ok, im sorry for drawing this out - here is a teaser pic!



Its here.. and im starting. I mean it, pics to follow soon!

Will be very interested in this build, you have some great reference pics there.

James

OK - lets get some photos posted!

Im not going to post shots of the sprues etc, I find that really tedious - but if anyone needs to see close up shots, please let me know and i'll take some.

Sorry for the quality of the pics - these are just quick and nasty ones taken off the bench without proper lighting - these are just the preliminary work in progress shots, i'll take more formal ones when the build progresses further.

I've built a ton of DML smart kit panthers, so I can almost put the suspension together in my sleep - the kit instructions are pretty spot on now, no errors that I could find in the suspension sections!

I always glue the inner torsion bar sections in first, and let the glue thoroughly harden before putting the outside torsion bar sections on - this will allow the suspension to remain a little workable, rather than gluing into a solid immovable structure.


I also like to make a departure from the instructions order, and get the basic hull parts together, before detailing the entire structure as a whole. Its easier to fill gaps and deal with fit issues if you're not having to tread carefully due to previously added details!

In getting the hull together, I noted that there is a bloody great big gap in the rear - where the rear hull armor meets the side armor:


I'll fill this with styrene, and replace the weld later.
DML have modified the upper hull for the M10 fairly substantially:
Here you can see the rear ends of the hull side armor have been shortened:


I cant imagine that this was done on the real Ersatz M10, I was always of the belief that the disguise parts were thin metal that went over the existing Panther armor.. Im guessing this was done for ease of build of the model

DML have also thankfully raised the very front section of hull roof armor, just forward of the hatch plate for the driver and operator. On the real thing this was about 1cm thicker than the rest of the roof armor plates


M10 kit:


LSW Smart Kit:


SO, thats where I am so far.. A VERY productive Saturday morning so far. Im waiting for the glue to harden on a few joins and gaps, then I can move on with construction - more images to follow!

SD

Sam

Looking good so far (but then it's a Panther, so why wouldn't it?). Are you coming up to QMHE next weekend ?

Look forward to seeing you there if you are.

Rob

What a great start Sam, this should be very interesting to say the least! I added the 'blog' icon to your thread, hope you don't mind. That way it'll have more exposure on the homepage and make it easier to find

Yep Rob - we will be up Friday.

James - thanks for making this a blog!

SD

The bum on the ersatz M10 ...



I thought rather than being trimmed back they were just covered with a fake extention that covered the Panther exhausts so can't see a need to trim the armour. Can anyone shed any light on that ? ( ie should the appearance be of a trimmed butt with an abutted extension, or of an overlapped extention ? ).

ye,it's new products of DML.But it's no sale in China's domestic

Cool blog so far sam. Looking forward to your progress.

Excellent stuff Sam! Ultra clean and quick build, with that well trained eye of yours already roving around the kit, pinpointing the details that need to be given attention. Typical Sam Dywer really! Great start to the 'Blog' I like the feel of this one already, is this one going to end up on the 'Schwerpunkt' gallery?

Cheers for bringing this to us all Sam, Phil.

Thanks Guys!

Here's a few more shots of today's progress.. the fore and aft disguise pieces are just placed there for now, just to see how everything looks:











The tow point is movable:







Sam Dwyer

clean work!
keep on going!

sam,
i've been a big fan of your work for years. i'm 44 years old and i never stop learn-ing from guys like you. your last panther of LAH and the white dot panther g were
stunning builds, and learned alot about realalistic battle damage from them. no doubt
in my mind this will be another beautiful build, that helps guys like me better their
skills in armor building and painting- weathering. top of the morning to you sam.

respectfuly yours nick morgan

Noice Sam, very noice.. :-)

I may just have to get one of these one day!

I hope I'm not off topic with more of a historical question on the topic.

Anyone know how effective these tanks were in causing chaos and confusion? Also, I was always under the belief that wearing another country's uniform in battle was punishable with being shot as a spy, anyone know what happened to these crews if they were captured? I can't imagine GI's would be too sympathetic.

Sam,
I alway find it impressive that Dragon improves some of their kits a bit at a time-it seems that they listen to comments on the internet.
I've always wondered if these tanks were actually painted OD, which must have been very hard to get, or a dark green?
Following along,
Dan

I'm not sure if the crews were wearing American uniforms as they were mainly hidden from view being inside the tank, so may well have worn standard German uniforms. As for the German soldiers dressed as US ones I've read that " the soldiers of the units who were captured (a mere 18) were all executed as spies" Most I believe when realising the mission was a failure dropped the disguise and reverted back to German uniforms, fighting with other units.

Alan

I believe the crews wore Luftwaffe/Fallshirmjager uniforms:



I'd heard this previously, and the one shot I could find with what looks like crew nearby seems to confirm this.. Having said that, I could be wrong, it wouldnt be the first time!


SD

Thanks for the replies and the great pics.

Funny thing is that even if they were wearing German uniforms, the tank itself is a deception of the same type. That is, dressing a tank and putting enemy insignia on it serves essentially the same purpose and might have led to being shot-- or damn well should have. Anyway, interesting stuff. DML deserves alot of credit for continuing to come up with such great kits.

Now if they only came up with civilian stuff! Cars, civilian figures, maybe even a glider! *sigh*

Cool Stuff, looking forward to your progress.. As for the glider Tylus, I believe Masterbox has some in the making!

A lot were.
The German deception in the Ardennes spread widespread panic among the GI's with rumors circulating that they were trying to capture Eisenhower among others. This coupled with news of attrocities by Kampfegruppe Pipier led to serious reprisals by US troops.
The lengths they went to in order to identify these disguised Germans were interesting, asking questions about baseball teams and state capitals (In one case a US general was held prisoner for several hours for getting a capital wrong), along with questions where the answer began with a 'W', as it prounounced 'V' by German speakers. One amusing way was that the German forgers had corrected a spelling mistake on the GI's papers and so they could be recognised!
In this sense the German effort was a success, however, in its attempt to gain territory it was not.
The US reprisals against anyone wearing US clothing however had a downside - many German troops had taken greatcoats and boots off dead GI's to protect them from the cold, the M1 carbine was also valued amongst the German troops, and so in some cases these troops became victims of the German deception plan, despite having played no part in it.

Loving the build, always wanted to do the CMK conversion with a Tamiya Panther of this AFV.

James

HI James - I built the CMK conversion a few years ago now, for a commission job -

Used the Tamiya G, with DML wheels, MK tracks, and Aber etch and turned barrel.



































Like I said, it was done a while ago, and for a commission job, so there are things I will do differently now that im building for myself!

Heres a little update on the DML kit - ive fitted most of the disguise parts now:













Production will slow down not - ive got QMHE this weekend:
http://www.qmhe.com/
Also, Wolfenstein comes out on Xbox 360 today, so everything gets pushed aside to play!

Sam