Small Scale Military Headquarters

And before someone jumps in with both feet, I don't mean the 1/18 ones but the real ones.

I am one of those who had rather not put the DAK figures in the back of one that was never actually in service there.

it was mostly the earlier versions of the 251 used in North Africa.....the ones with the 'pointy' back ends. I don't think any of the 'D' models with the flat back ends, as represented by 21c's toy, made it to north africa. If they did it was only in limited numbers.

In fact, not one of 21c's 1/18 vehicles has north african markings, so technically none of what has been released would go with the DAK figures.

However, you could repaint a panzer iv (without side skirts) and that would be correct. I don't think even pak 40's were used in north africa. It was mostly pak 36's, pak 38's (which look the same but were smaller and 50mm rather than 75mm) and 88's.

And you could repaint a Tiger, as a few made it to North Africa right near the end.

MG-42 wrote:


.......... Side note :

21st. has not put out an SdKfz. type yet.

>>> Except for the Hanomag , of course. + ,.. Sorry !

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I meant 251's. So, none of the 21st 251's are representative of any used in North Africa! Well, I guess I should have done a little more research before loading up on DAK figures to use with them.

I have several good reference books on North Africa axis vehicles, just don't have access to them at the moment. Seems I do remember that most 251's in those books had the pointed rear end. Still be worth a good look when I get home.

Found 1 book which I had with me that said the 251's with the flat rear doors did not go into production until 1943, so probably none of them made it to North Afrika by May of that year when the Axis troops there surrendered. I also read on line that no more than around 67 251/1's were ever sent to North Africa during the entire war there. Should have done this research in the first place! But I'm going to keep looking just in case.

I can save you the fuss of a fruitless search. No Ausf Ds ever made it across the Med. The lastest model to serve in North Africa was the Ausf C. At any rate, this didn't stop me from a wishful thinking repaint.



Note the Panzer IV Ausf G. I have an Early Production Tiger custom in progress, but that one will have to sit until I can find the dish style road wheels. As Aferg mentioned, the PaK 40 was also too late. However, plenty of 88s were there. I have some Sand Gelb paint standing by for it's release in 1/18. If we're lucky, we might one day see a PaK 36 or 38 or some campaign appropriate field artillery.

Actually the pak 40 was used by the africakorps,in Schiffer military history book "Rommel's Tropical Army in Original Color" page 92 there are a few pictures,also the kubelwagen was widely used,regular tires or ballon,after the kassine pass battle the germans used large numbers of U.S. halftracks,trucks and jeeps,so there are a few vehicles 21st century toys makes in 1/18th scale that can be used.

there's no chance the the pak 40's in the book are being confused with pak 38's? They look almost identical, but the pak 38 is about 10% smaller..

pak 40's were used in sicily and italy but my understanding is that none made it to north africa.

Actually, since the German supply train was pretty unreliable, they used just about anything they could get their hands on. US, British and Italian paint made it into their supply lockers too. Often thinned with gasoline and applied with mops or brooms, the desert paint jobs were the rough equivalent to the winter camo applied on the Eastern Front. Consequently, your DAK paint job can be as pretty or ugly as you like, and it'll still be a fair representation. I've seen color photos of field artillery pieces, for example, that were nearly half naked metal. The rest was grey and sand colored paint. Along with the natural dust of course.

FWIW, the Panzer IV is painted with Panzer Dark Yellow, not Sand Yellow. It all works.

The 251's that would have been used by the DAK would have had the pointed rear as has been pointed out, and the pointed two angle front plate. There also wouldn,t have been PAK 40's in Africa. The long barrelled 75mm barely made it into tanks before the DAK suurendered.

IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb10 ... ies009.jpg[/IMG]

This sure looks like a pak 40 to me. The book says this is a 75mm anti- tank pak 40 with the gun shield camoflaged with a sand-colored tarp. Maybe the "Desert Fox", Field Marshal Rommel snuck a few in!

.......... "Sure looks like one to me" . + =

1958Zelda wrote:

IMG]http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb10 ... ies009.jpg[/IMG]

This sure looks like a pak 40 to me. The book says this is a 75mm anti- tank pak 40 with the gun shield camoflaged with a sand-colored tarp. Maybe the "Desert Fox", Field Marshal Rommel snuck a few in!

Holy crap! That's fantastic! If ever there was a time I was happy to be proven wrong, this is it!

Looks like the two PaKs I just boxed up will be getting a reprieve. Gotta warm up the paint brushes. Awww yeah.

well, i've asked on missing lynx for the definitive answer as to whether pak 40's were used in north africa or not. So, we'll have the answer soon...

All of this talk about halftracks is making me wish that SOMEBODY puts out the awesome SdKfz 9 schwerer Zugkraftwagen 18t real soon!

Oh well, back to the discussion ...

i really doubt we'll see a sdkfz 9 ever. Very big and thus expensive. An sdkfz 7 probably has a good chance though, since it's a fair bit smaller than the 9. And it was the normal tow vehicle for the 88, so it seems pretty logical we'll see it.

(the world needs an sdkfz 7. now!)

Either one is fine with me!


Jeff

Maybe 21st century is planning to release the sdkfz 7 along with the 88 at the same time Just found this on a website just on info for the hanomags. Here is a list of all the conversions of the hanomags:
There were 23 official variants of the German halftrack, and sundry unofficial variants. Each variant is identified by a
suffix to the model number. There was however some overlap in the variant numbers.

* SdKfz 251/1 - standard company machine * SdKfz 251/9 - Equipped with 75mm L/24 gun

* SdKfz 251/1 - Rocket Launcher * SdKfz 251/10 - Equipped with 37mm Pak 36

* SdKfz 251/1 - Falke Infrared detection equipment * SdKfz 251/11 - Telephone line layer

* SdKfz 251/2 - 80mm Mortar Carrier * SdKfz 251/12, 13, 14, 15 - specialty artillery veh.

* SdKfz 251/3 - Communications vehicle * SdKfz 251/16 - Flammpanzerwagen

* SdKfz 251/4 - Infantry tractor for towing guns * SdKfz 251/17 - 20mm or 30mm Flak

* SdKfz 251/5 - Assault engineer vehicle * SdKfz 251/18 - armored artillery observation

* SdKfz 251/6 - Command version * SdKfz 251/19 - telephone exchange vehicle

* SdKfz 251/7 - Pionierpanzerwagen * SdKfz 251/20 - Infrared searchlight

* Sd.Kfz.251/8 - Armoured ambulance * SdKfz 251/21 - Flakpanzerwagen, 3 15mm MGs

* SdKfz 251/22 - 75mm Pak 40
Here yeah go 21st century a list of cool ideas