RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Hi,

Starting a new build, this will be a Stug III G late as built by Alkett in 1944.

It's my second German WW2 build in a row after years of trying to build any alternatives i could find... i must be nostalgic of my panzer modelling era. Oh, how many Stugs do i have... ? i am counting 5 on the display shelves, and 3 more awaiting building. After a few summer/autumn builds that were fragile conversions of plastic or resin kits (M5A1, M3, Panzer 1B), i feel it is time to build something heavier and stronger. I want to built my ultimate Stug, one that is special and does not resemble one that i already have.

These are my main Stug references books, they are highly recommended and inspiring for the builders. Every special features of Stugs are well documented.
There were 2 main builders of Stugs, Miag and Alkett. I selected a late model Stug G build by Alkett. It features include a late 75mm gun muzzle, Saukopf mantlet, remote control machine gun, steel return rollers.
The bolted armored plates on the front armor are gone, now welded. Notice the coax machine gun on top right of the Saukopf.
Well known photo of a captured Stug III with concrete supplemental armor applied in the field. That's interesting.
As the concrete was applied by the crew, none seem to look alike, providing the builder with a level of freedom. Notice the anti-magnetic Zimmerit paste.
A Taigen metal chassis will be used.
View from under. The chassis features a very solid metal frame with a plastic overlay for the details.
It is equipped with torsion bar suspensions. Very nice features, but as you will see later, the torsion bars require adjustments.
The metal road wheels with rubber tires are simply superb, with ball bearings and a good strong axle.
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Showing the axle.
A Heng Long upper hull will be stripped out of most features, and rebuilt. Notice the ATAK concrete supplemental armour in resin, and the Panzerparts Saukopt. I have a Tank Modellbau Schurzen plastic kit but i am not planning to use it. I find it too weak, and Schurzens actually hides too much of the model.
The Stug will be equipped with Ostketten of the earlier type.
Provided by Mato, the metal Ostketten with extensions were on sale for about $40 on Black Friday at MatoMart.
Many Alkett Stugs features the waffle Zimmerit pattern.
Difficult to produce, i purchased a resin set from ATAK.
Maybe too perfect.
The earlier roof mounted MG34 with the raised shield were replaced by a remote control machine gun on late versions. Also notice the proximity defense weapon in the front of it.
This metal MG34 remote control station kit is from Panzerparts. It comes with the replacement hatches that open sideways.
Late Stugs were equipped with metal return rollers, there were 3 versions (early, mid, late).These are the early model. Notice the waffle pattern zimmerit.

Plastic late model return rollers were purchased from RCTANK.DE. Sadly, the early model Taigen metal return rollers with rubber tires won't be used on this model.
The model will be equipped with a new metal barrel, replacing the oversized Heng Long barrel made to shoot pellets.
The muzzle brake will be the superb ABER 7.5cm Late model kit no 16L11, a significant expense that i hope will be worth the cost. Still in transit.
Starting the build with the assembly of the roadwheel. It did not take me long to notice a major issue with the Taigen chassis. It is at least 5mm too high on its wheel.
The only adjustment possible that i have found is to remove the torsion bar and work on them to remove tension.
The torsion bars can be twisted with 2 pliers to remove some tension and align the roadwheel to rest at a higher default.
I also removed the torsion bar on the last set of wheels. Their dampers are enough.
Showing the new height of the suspension arms. The two at the front are a bit higher as they support the motors and need more tension. The last one is higher because it is pushed up by the damper without any resistance.
After some weight is put inside the model, it is now resting at a proper 78.8mm from the table up to the height of the fenders.
All features were stripped down, including the bolted armour.

New welded frontal armor will be installed, made of plasticard.
Although i wanted to install a Mato gearbox, the Taigen pre-drilled mount plate holes for the gearbox are made for the Heng Long gearbox. Installing the Mato gearbox would have required quite a bit of rework at the front, and the bars for the suspension under it were getting in the way of installing a new support plate. For now, i resigned myself on installing a set of Heng Long Panzer III gearbox i had in store.
That's it for now.

Regards, Louis

Thanks for sharing Louis, I’ve got my popcorn out for this one


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Some more pictures of various Stug versions with concrete supplemental armor.

Hi,

The Stug III G late frontal armor was increased to 80mm, and welded as shown in the Stug PanzerFile book. The bolted on armor plate coming with the Heng Long early G should not be used on top.
The Taigen chassis need a lot of work at the front. A plasticard overlay is required to hide all the holes and joints. First, the screw heads that holds the locking mechanism inside must either be replace with flat heads or grinded flat.
A 1.5mm plasticard plate is put on top, with limited grinding inside for the flattened screw heads to coexist. The plastic sides of the hull at too short as shown by the transmission gear housing coming flush with the tip of the vertical tow bracket at the front. These should be a couple of mm there in between.
View of the frontal arrangement of the armored plates on the real thing. 80mm of armor thickness means the model should have a 5mm thickness equivalent showing at the joints. The front plate is also a little bit higher than the glacis, something interesting to reproduce.
The 80mm armored plate thickness is reproduced with a 0.5mm plasticard strip 5mm wide and glued to the hull section.
The removal of the bolted-on armor plate left holes to be plugged. A thin plasticard is used, earlier positioned and glued in place in relation to the frontal plate on the chassis.
The upper hull slides under the frontal armor, for a solid and hidden joint, which is correctly a bit higher that the upper hull, as shown earlier. As the whole thing will be covered with Zimmerit paste, little finetuning is required.
View of the late G model tow bracket.
The tow bracket needed rework by mainly extending them towards the front to show the proper distance with the frontal hull and the gearbox housing on the sides. It now compares well to reference pictures of Late G models.
View of the underside of the ATAK concrete add-on armor. It needed little preparation.
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It is positioned in place with no trouble.
The Stug G had the welded add-on armor section in front of the cupola to deflect incoming rounds.
The ATAK kit comes with it for the frontal area, and also an additional concrete armor section for the side and back of the cupola. Not sure the setup of this was widespread, i could not find pictures of it. But as the concrete was added by the crew, as a tank commander, it looks like a good idea to protect the sides and back of the cupola while the guys are preparing concrete, so i would probably have asked them myself to add it using two wood planks for the mold.
The model got its Dolly Parton concrete armor treatment, and is now ready for its Zimmerit coat.
The original closed air intake units are replaced by open ones sold as option. The photo-etched metal grill for them is coming.
Next step, the Zimmerit.

Regards, Louis

Aweseome. Looks like very detailed build.

Hi, here is the Zimmerit.

Good wartime pictures of Late model Stug III are rare. This is a nice box art of the rare DML kit 6891 of late stug III with Saukopf mantlet, concrete armor, no schurzens and with zimmerit. Other than lacking the Ostkettens tracks, this is pretty much the plan for this build. Of course, a Stug looks better with schurzens and regular armor but i already have two of these and i want a Stug that looks different.
Good reference pictures of remains of Waffle pattern zimmerit on two surviving Alkett made Stugs. The idea is to do something similar, applying the anti-magnetic paste where an enemy foot soldier could get close to the tank and stick a magnetic anti-armor mine to an important part of the hull that would destroy it.
It was roughly applied.
Frontal areas, sides including under the fender, rear and rear deck of the Stug must be thoroughly covered. Anyone, like me, who has in the past applied putty and use a scalper to shape zimmerit in real time know the complexity of achieving good results, specially around hatches, traps and curves that need to show they can still be open. Doing zimmerit in 1/16 is risky, the whole thing could end up as a blob of putty or looking something out of "Invasion of the body snatchers" movie.
The ATAK resin Waffle pattern sheets are not designed for any particular model. Using them requires sections to be drawn and cut. The waffles can conveniently be snapped one waffle at a time. Using these sheets instead of putty de-risks the zimmerit job and makes it more uniform.
Installation of the zimmerit waffles is done telescopically, one section at a time with superglue. It is important to show that all hatches are there and can be opened. This is the most complex part of the job.
Zimmerit was manually applied at the factory. Under the fenders, exposed flat areas were covered on a best effort basis, and repro here the same way.
I gave the model Mato metal exhaust and heat reflector.
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