1/35 Border Panzer IV Ausf J .Completed

[PanzerWomble]

Cheers for the pix .

My curiosity is now high , as on the Panthers, AFAIK,  Ambush Cammo was painted in the Daimler factory not at the unit level, and not for a long time either, also MAN a played with the "disc" mats for a short period , before giving up altogether and supplying them in just primer .  

Was this factory or the Werkeskompanie in 5PD painting them to match their Panthers. I wish I knew more . 

Thanks though , I might have and excuse to go buy some more books ! 

 

[PanzerWomble]

Oddly coincidental Tomasz at LCW has been doing the newish Tamiya PzIV , all acrylics no oils. 

 

 

[Artful69]

On 3/26/2023 at 6:51 AM, PanzerWomble said:

Zipping on , turret ready for paint .

 

 

Here's a BotB Ausf J ...I've some one from the fighting with HJ around the twin villages on the Elsenborn ridge somewhere as well . This one is caption 9 Pz Div near Bastogne . 

 

 

Suspect restoration in Saumur ....zimmerit ...pre september ....mesh skirts ....late 1944 ...maybe ? French did have a habit of bunging stuff together . 

Might well be an ausf H looking at the turret. I didn't take that many pix . 

 

Laterz 

PW 

 

You might be right about the Ausf.H bit ... IIRC Zimmerit was phased into production at the latter end of the G production - and all throughout H production and phased out before the J production ... not all late Pz.IV late G's or H's had zimmerit though, so references need to be checked ... but at least you can, with a fair margin of safety, say that any J was not going to have it applied ... a rear shot of the museum tank would be a telltale - what kind of exhaust muffler set up is there? ... Late Js dropped the rearmost return roller as part of the production simplification process also - as noted on the B & W photo above.

Rog

[PanzerWomble]

26 minutes ago, Artful69 said:

 

You might be right about the Ausf.H bit ... IIRC Zimmerit was phased into production at the latter end of the G production - and all throughout H production and phased out before the J production ... not all late Pz.IV late G's or H's had zimmerit though, so references need to be checked ... but at least you can, with a fair margin of safety, say that any J was not going to have it applied ... a rear shot of the museum tank would be a telltale - what kind of exhaust muffler set up is there? ... Late Js dropped the rearmost return roller as part of the production simplification process also - as noted on the B & W photo above.

Rog

You talking about the Saumur PzIV I posted a pic of above ?

It's an H for sure , just with mesh skirts, which is more a J thing I thought?

Which makes me question how accurate/original a lot of the exhibits are . Not a pop at the French Armour folk, but museums sometime get "over enthusiatic" . Panzermuseum at Munster had the Frankentiger for awhile, which is just welded together parts in all honesty. Bovington famously painted the Matilda II wrong . My general point was museums make mistakes os exhibits aren't gospel . 

Also I'm no real expert on the subject matter here and as Nick Moran points out , you can never say "this didn't happen" because there will always be a contemporary photo showing it did 😀

A picture of it's rear end - clearly an H looking at that perfectly rounded muffler ! 

 

[Martinnfb]

Great progress on your panzer PW. I especially like the level of research you doing and the discussion here. Joy to follow. 

[PanzerWomble]

 

 

OK calling this one done for now and ze pix are here

Hatches are all unglued, I couldn't find any figures I liked in the stash so may look around for something nicer and revisit with a couple of crew. 

[PanzerWomble]

5 hours ago, Martinnfb said:

Great progress on your panzer PW. I especially like the level of research you doing and the discussion here. Joy to follow. 

Cheers ...I'm a bit "model to a period photo" at times. I don't trust drawn profiles per se . Did get somewhat carried away with this a few years ago . 😐

[Artful69]

7 hours ago, PanzerWomble said:

You talking about the Saumur PzIV I posted a pic of above ?

It's an H for sure , just with mesh skirts, which is more a J thing I thought?

Which makes me question how accurate/original a lot of the exhibits are . Not a pop at the French Armour folk, but museums sometime get "over enthusiatic" . Panzermuseum at Munster had the Frankentiger for awhile, which is just welded together parts in all honesty. Bovington famously painted the Matilda II wrong . My general point was museums make mistakes os exhibits aren't gospel . 

Also I'm no real expert on the subject matter here and as Nick Moran points out , you can never say "this didn't happen" because there will always be a contemporary photo showing it did 😀

A picture of it's rear end - clearly an H looking at that perfectly rounded muffler ! 

 

Yes exactly! ....

Zimmerit was applied at the factory only - not replaced or applied in the field ... so it's a pretty solid identifier on the period of vehicle you are looking at. SO ... unless your museum curator gets a bit of 'creative licence' going with some 'After Market' Zimmerit, the vehicle can correctly be identified as a late G or H. Which, will be identified by certain other variant amendments at factory fit out level.

The mesh side skirts are a different story. Although the mesh was introduced along with other weight saving / cost saving / production time saving measures attributed to the J variant - it was not just a factory application ... solid skirts were no longer produced. I'm sure you've seen various photos of vehicles with solid skirts in the field ... some with various parts missing, having been shot off in combat or otherwise lost or destroyed and removed. Some crews elected to remove them altogether - enjoying the benefits of faster speeds and manoeuvrability that the weight shedding provided - thus you will see photos of the frames on the vehicles without the skirts. Other crews wanted the skirts replaced, but the only option available was the mesh variety ... and so you can find photo's of StuG III's and even Panzer III Ausf.N's with mesh skirting panels replacing blown off solid affairs!

TLDR ... mesh skirting means more than likely a J - but check other factory fitted components to make sure ...

Rog