Another (Taigen) Late Panther G , 'Müncheberg' IR April 45

[Dr Phibes]

Doc Phibes!,
Beautiful work (as per par ). I hear you on the Storage Bins. On the current Jagdpanther Build, I used the tops and bottom support plate only after opening up the Taigen plastic Bins. I did make the lids operable but have them latched down currently. I looked at the tiny locks and had a good chuckle and left them off in case I ever did want to open up a bin lid again. Following along still.
regards,
Painless

Hi Painless,

I really do need to catch up with your Jagdpanther build asap. Getting those lids functional is a no easy feat if my experience is anything to go by, well done! Yes, the locks really don't need to be there, I've looked at literally hunderds of old Panther pictures (as many have, I'm sure) D's, A's, and of course G's a plenty and can't say I've seen one of these locks on a single one of them (or any other German WW2 tank for that matter). Truthfully, it was more a bit of fun than anything else:D

[Dr Phibes]

Well, following on from before this will be the last update for now.
This time it's the turn of the turret. The Taigen turret in this case is an all metal affair which is no bad thing at all - usually.
However, on this occasion it presented a problem because although Panther No.122 is a late G (though you might be surprised how many have claimed it is every variety of Panther ever to exist) it has an old 'A' type mantlet, which is to say, without the 'chin'. The 'chin' is (for those not familiar) an upgrade to the mantlet that adds a thick large extension to the lower bottom edge of the mantlet to effectively deal with a potential 'shot trap' caused by the design of the previous casting. This lower extension/protrusion looks a bit like a beard on the mantlet, or a 'chin'.

The new mantlet with the 'chinny chin chin' upgrade was order for all Panther manufactured forward from, as I recall, around September 44 (though someone can correct me as I don't have my books to hand). The problem was, however, shortage of raw materials meant many G's were still sent to the field equipped with older mantlet simply because the upgraded 'chinny chin chin' wasn't available.
The bottom line is No.122 is probably one such tank from the Daimler-Benz stable.
So, enough of this history nonsense (even though so many of us love it really) the bottom line here is that for my Panther to be a representation of No.122 it has got to have a chinless mantlet from the dark days when nobody loved the Panther driver who would get a very bad headache if someone took aim with large cannon at just that spot where the chinny chin chin should be, but isn't

With this in mind, and joking aside, I began the process of rebuilding the turret to the correct specifications firstly removing the internals. The standard Taigen servo recoil and elevation unit, fitted to their upper tier Pro-metal offering is actually quite impressive I think. Having not opening up the turret previously I was pleasantly surprised at the layout and gear driven mechanism they had devised. On this account I reconsidered my plan to shoehorn in a Heng Long servo unit I had on standby and considered reutilising the Taigen unit instead;

And with the internals removed, a nice clean start;

With the electricals removed I begun the again the process of removing all the old Taigen paint, which as I pointed out earlier, is actually quite good,, and a real pain to remove! :problem;

In the following picture is the (finally) cleaned up turret. In the bottom left of the picture is my newly designed and 3D printed 'chinless' mantlet. Sitting to the right of this is the metal Taigen mantlet with the chin. I had considered reworking the Taigen mantlet but this was likey to be problematic as quite lot of material would need to be ct away. Another option here is a replacement resin mantlet from Rctanks.de. The problem with this being it is made for the Tamiya RC tank, so I understand, and therefore would also need a fair amount of modification. The advantage of designing and printed the replacement myself is that I could make sure it dovetailed nicely with the Taigen mechanism - which it did thankfully ;

I would point out also in the last picture the barrel seen at the top I have prepared already for installation. It the the next image is the now primed turret parts (again with the excellent Mr Oxide Red Surfacer). Also here can be seen the other side of the new 3D printed mantlet again along side the Taigen 'chinned' mantlet;

In the this picture below can be seen the installation of the Taigen mechanism body to which I have fitted better metal gear servos. These are still quite cheap servos but a lot better than the ones provided by Taigen which are plastic geared (a simple upgrade I would recommend to owners of servo equipped Taigen tanks). I have much stronger (and more expensive) servos but they are a little larger and using the MG90S was more or less a straightforward swap in (I love the path of least resistance ).
The other thing to notice here is the (rather tight) installation of the Heng Long Smoking Barrel system. This took a bit fiddling about to fitted because the heater needs to be easy to top up. Hence it is position over the copula base with the feed tube coming just beneath the copula hatch. In addition to this the Taigen Xenon flash unit is also installed at this time;

The final image of the turret internal installation shows this part more or less completed. Here it can be seen at the, as viewed, the voltage step-down unit to provide a steady 6 Volts for the smoking barrel system. At the bottom as viewed is the new electrical loom which I implemented to keep (almost) the 360 traverse turret. Also evident is the trigger switch mount I designed for attachment to top (bottom as viewed) of the Taigen breech body;

And lastly, the next couple of pictures show the turret reassembled back on the upper hull. This I have upgrade with both a metal turret ring and full metal traverse unit (I have these in other tank and really like them though the MFU board needs protecting with a low value resistor as if these jam they will not slip when matched to a metal traverse ring - the result of which will not be good! );

Just in passing it can be seen that the drivers periscope hood and base are now fitted. As I can show later, but did not mention before, the new base is a 3D printed design of might and it enables full traverse of the drivers periscope.
Well that's it for now at least, I do have some more progress of the upper detailing on the hull and turret but haven't got around to getting some pictures together yet. When I do, and have more progress, I will post some more stuff!

[HERMAN BIX]

Astonishing work Sir..............without doubt THE most organised & immaculate interior Ive ever seen

[Jofaur86]

Hello, yes great work, as Herman says, nice organization of the material, however I have a question? sure the recoil system is a Taigen?

[Jofaur86]

Hello, yes great work, as Herman says, nice organization of the material, however I have a question? sure the recoil system is a Taigen?

[Dr Phibes]

Apologies for not replying earlier

Thanks Mr Bix!

Hi Jofaur, Thanks , and yes the servo recoil system was indeed entirely as stock and as it came from Taigen. Of course I replaced the servos with a metal gear version and modified the breech internally to accommodate the cannon smoke tube along with the Taigen xenon flash set-up. In addition I added a 3d printed plate which affixed to the top of the breech to carry the trigger for the smoke unit. I could have triggered the smoke control unit other ways but this seemed the simplest way at the time

[Jofaur86]

Hello, no worries!! I did not know that Taigen made this kind of mechanism? where did you find it? otherwise am admiring in front of the nickel organization of the elements in the turret

[Dr Phibes]

I purchased this version of the Taigen Panther G from RCTanks.de and can recommend them as I have made very many purchased and always receive excellent service. Actually, as I recall Taigen now make a few of their tanks with servo recoil and elevation as well as some with pre-installed smoking cannon.

[Dr Phibes]

Well this is as good a time as any to add another update. Progress has been slower than I bargained on for two reasons, 1) I had not anticipated the amount of research I was in for when I decided to make this build a reasonable representation of an actual WW2 tanks - the Muncheberg Panther G No.122 and , 2) the sheer amount of fiddly detail I was about to become entangled with. This is, in many ways, a very complex tank in any case and attending to the specifics of this particular big cat presented challenges for sure.

Anyway, I eventually made headway and am about ready to move on to priming and painting, etc. I do still have some loose ends to tie up but the bulk of the upper hull detailing is now more or less complete (click on image);

In this image (below) the 'A' mantlet I made to replace the Taigen one with the chin can been seen fitted. The 'shot trap' problem, as it is often referred to, can be clearly seen here. Also notice the mounting bracket for an additional infrared lamp has been added to the right-hand side and can be seen on the original picture of No.122 (posted at the beginning of this thread). Also, the upgraded (and heavy) MK Modellbau MG ball mount and armoured MG34, and radio/MG operators periscope is of note here (click on image);

Following are closer looks at the right side tool rack and tools;

Here is one that really was a challenge, 44 links to this travel lock chain (as I recall) and once completed it works just like the original - a real test for old eyes for sure. The other thing of note in this picture is the drivers periscope hood that assume would have been fitted but not evidenced as such on the wreck. one thing of note is that this is actually quite a bit smaller than the one on the Taigen as it arrived. I'm guessing this was intentional because as working RC tank it would be more robust (click on image);

The next image is a close up of the muzzle brake the bore of which needed reducing since Taigen provided a nicely made but oversized one. This is probably due to being used on their BB firing version of the Panther and sharing the same muzzle brake. This still needs a little further work to finish;

Tool rack and tools on the left side;

Turret roof and cupola details. In particular the difficulty here was in installing the six small cupola periscopes, each complete with glass, etc;

Unique to Panthers like No. 122 manufactured by Daimler- Benz the mount for spare road wheels was placed to the rear side plate of the turret and were of a peculiar design, as can be seen here with my 3D printed version;

To be continued..............

[Dr Phibes]

So, I was was never entirely happy with the Taigen supplied flame suppressors (Flammenvernichter), not that they are at all bad but that I just felt they needed a little more detail as they were, after all, quite prominent. Hence I designed and printed these replacements which have a more accurate vane count and appearance. Making these functional in terms of being able to pass the smoke through was the difficulty but in the end I am quite pleased with the outcome;

Here below are the various details on the engine deck, including the new version Flammenvernichter to the rear, and the tow cable. This cable is actually for a Tiger 1 (I have the Panther cables) but images of No.122 show this infrared equipped Panther with a single long cable that looks, to me, like a Tiger cable. It's entirely possible that this was added in operation, having lost one or more of the original cables. However, the fact that it is insitu and images of other Panther show other configurations as well, suggests to my mind it is also possible that a single, larger, cable was configured at the assembly simply because that was all that was available. Who knows? This tank was one of the last, knocked out sometime in April '45. Given it was rolled out some time between October '44 and March '45, when Germany's factory resources were at an all time low to say the least, it is entirely possible that this is how No.122 was initially equipped, but as I say, who knows? For now I'm sticking to what my eyes can see, and speculating for the rest!;

Another view of the new Flammenvernichter and the infrared storage box to the right rear;

And finally - one thing that might be noticed here is the missing spare track links on both sides which would most probably have been present previously. These are missing on the right-side of the images of No.122 but not on the left. I will, however, probably leave them off both sides in this place because this is where Daimler-Benz placed the Balkenkreuz both sides, as well as on the rear between the exhausts (behind the jack it seems?). I'm not sure why they decided on these particular placements but, anyway, I am thinking I want this to be obvious and not hidden on this occasion;

So, that's pretty much it up to date. Now I will need to strip off all the dry fitted tools and accessories in readiness for prep and primer - onwards and upwards, I hope!