Captured Sherman Tank

I acquired a new Battlefront plastic Sherman kit a few months ago and have been wondering what I should do with it (as the other Shermans I have are slightly smaller and out of scale) for some time. I'm not sure how it happened, but it finally dawned on me one night. I wanted to see a Sherman in German service.

I assembled and primed the model before painting it US Army olive drab. I then applied uneven coats of German Dunkelgelb, as I wanted parts of the original paint to be showing through. The idea was that this tank was recently captured and thrown into Axis service ASAP. 

I'll be honest: the German crosses really bug me. But that was the look I was trying to go for. The following photos show hastily painted, sloppy Balkenkreuzen. It's obvious the new German owners didn't spend a lot of time on it, nor did I.

My next step was to apply winter camouflage to the model. This was accomplished using my traditional method of toothpaste and spray paint.

The tracks still need to be painted, but this model is essentially done (apart from the commander who will be coming later). Comments, as always, are appreciated.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is going to be my final update for a while. As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm moving across the country for grad school in just a few days and don't know how soon I'll be able to work on anything. But it'll be soon enough!

First Panzer IV Ausf. H

My friend Ben recently introduced me to a new game called Flames of War. It's a 15mm WWII game which, it turns out, is a lot of fun to play! After lending (and leasing) me his British tank force for our first few games, I decided that I needed to start building my own army to play against the Weasel.

I settled on an Ardennes-style German force. I've always loved the look of tanks in the winter, and so here it is - my first Panzer IV Ausf. H!

Underneath that white camouflage is German Dunkelgelb, or dark yellow. I realize that the foliage is a bit off for the Battle of the Bulge. Not only is the grass too long, but it's also too yellow (it was a much darker green when I applied it to the model, but I think the sealer is making it dry out faster). I'm in the process of replacing it; the Flames of War website offers a nice tutorial. So I figure I'll end up doing something very similar.

Here's a close-up of the tank commander. I'm really pleased with how he turned out! I'd never painted a 15mm figure before and think he came out pretty well. If you look closely you can see a red dot on his cockade - a detail that I'm particularly proud of.

I didn't attach the side skirts because, based on a lot of the photos I've looked at, the Germans tended to take them off in the winter months. You can also see where I tried to put snow and mud in the tracks. I think they still look a little too clean, so I'm going to go back and dirty them up a bit more using Games Workshop's new texture paints.

Overall, I think this tank turned out pretty well for a first time. The kit was easy to assemble and a joy to paint. I'll definitely be building a few more of these, so stay tuned for more German armor goodness!