1/72 Italeri/Esci Panzer III Ausf.N in North Africa

Gallery Article by Jean-Paul Wrona on July 27 2012

 

Hallo !

Here is a little diorama I finished few days ago. It depicts a German Panzer III Ausf.N in North Africa.

The Panzerkampfwagen III was a medium tank designed by Daimler Benz during the 1930s, and used from the beginning to the end of the war. When the tank entered in service, its design was modern with a crew of 5 men, 3 of them were in the turret (the gunner, the loader and the commander). The vehicle was also equipped with radio and intercom. 

About it armament, first variants were equipped with a 3,7cm gun, latter replaced with a 5cm gun. The last variant, the "Ausführung N" was equipped with a short barreled 7,5cm L/24 gun (the same weapon used on first variants of the Panzer IV).

From 1942-1943, the role of Panzer III declined because it was outclassed by soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks, and was replaced by Panzer IV and Panther tanks.

 

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The Italeri kit of the Panzer IIIM/N is a reissue of the Esci mold. It provides various options of equipment and colors : 5cm or 7,5cm guns, side skirts ("schürzen" in German), markings for tanks used in Russia (Orel, Kursk), Italy and Tunisia. I decided to do a Ausf.N used by the 15.Panzer Division (so 7,5cm gun and no skirts).

Building wasn't difficult. I did it out of the box but with few improvements by scratch. The most notable concerns smoke launchers, Esci provided a poor representation. So, I deleted them, cut 6 bits from a styrene rod and created 2 supports with 2 little squares of metal foil appropriately formatted.

Main color (Afrika Braun '42) was airbrushed and the others were applied with a brush.

The figures come from the Mig Production range for the tank commander, and from Italeri for the motorcycle binomial (bike inclueded).

Soil was made with tinted wall coating (the pigment used also served for to represent dust on the tank), rocks are cork bits and grass is from The Army Painter range.

Hope you liked it.

Jean-Paul Wrona

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Photos and text © by Jean-Paul Wrona