1/72 Italeri/Esci Panzer III Ausf.N in North Africa |
||
|
||
Hallo !
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 |
|
Photos and text © by Jean-Paul Wrona