I've had this IV F2 for a while now and been looking for a suitable subject to get after.
There are a few high quality IV conversions on the go now which offer so much great how-to info, so it would be silly to cover the same ground.
Lots of research and learning on the many variants that the IV went through leads me to dub it "The German Sherman"
Ongoing improvements, up-armouring, upgunning, reliable, and versatile the Pz IV is everything the Sherman was.
Workhorses and grafters................no show pony's here.
Along the meanderings through the well populated pictures of these machines, a few facts surfaced.
- the F2 was a very low production model before a few changes made them into 'G's.
- F2's were the first transition into the L43 75 main gun to counter the T34 threat.
- F2's went through various upgrades on the fly to enhance their combat effectiveness, and to standardise them with production G and H models.
- F2's were tagged for the aborted invasion of Malta (operation Herkules) with a strong possibility that they were camo painted over a base of desert yellow when landed in Russia.
Its these machines that ended up in the 29th rgt, 12 Pz Div, in Russia 1942-43.
I intend to try to reproduce one of these Malta Invasion machines, B11, and its colour scheme in Russia, retaining it as a base F2 rather than a G.
Turret Schurzen might be in order as at this time the added armour fit out was well under way.
Perhaps the only strictly non-F2 thing I would like to add is a 'G' muzzle brake...............The globular one is awful
Anyway, here goes............
