f2k
New Member
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2011
- Messages
- 301
IT’S ALIVE!
Oh yes... Today the Jagdpanzer E 100 fired up its engines for the first time and left the workshop, heading for the paintbooth...
Man, what a rush to finally getting it done...
I’ve spent almost a month just turning it over and over in my hands, wondering what to do with it. Originally I had planned to festoon it with stowage, camo-netting, crew, tank riders, tools, whatever to show a tank that was working on the fringes of the Third Reich towards the end of the war. But the more stowage I added, the more displeased I was with the result.
Finally, three days ago, I figured out what was wrong. The tank is simply so big that the stowage looks absolutely ridiculously out of place. I just couldn’t make it all click together without covering the entire tank. And I still wanted to preserve the overall smooth lines of the hull so...
Three days ago I simply tore off all the gubbinz. That, of course, left me with a pitted and cratered surface, filled with holes and patches of half-melted plastic where the stowage had been glued on. So I had to cover the entire casemate in 0.5 mm. plastic-sheets to cover it all and then seal the edges with brownstuff. The next two days was spent running greenstuff welding seams around the tank to recreate the texture that shows the areas where the armour plates meet. Yes, I know, it looks a bit overdone but that was the whole look that I was going after. I wanted to model a tank that had obviously been crudely welded together from whatever types of steel plates were available at Krupp towards late ’45 or early ’46.
This then, is the completed Jagdpanzer E 100 Ausf. a as it would look in the spring of 1947. Or, as I have nicknamed it, the Frankentank...
The front show the extremely thick glacis plate, measuring a full 200 mm. angled at 60 degrees, and the fearsome 15 cm. KwK L/63 anti-tank gun.
A close up of the front shows the top of the casemate with the gunners periscope in the foreground and Oberleutnant Jürgen Hoffmann, commander of Kampfgruppe Hoffmann (consisting of his Jagdpanzer and a small mixed unit of Heer and Volksgrenadier troops – a sorry lot to be sure, but at this point in the war you should count yourself fortunate to have a unit to command at all...).
Also, if you look closely at the commander’s hatch you might notice small pieces of plastic-sheet in the openings. For some reason the kit didn’t include optics for the hatch so I had to make my own, using plastic-sheets backed by greenstuff.
The rear shows the engine deck and the tools stowed away there. It also shows the small double-hatch leading into the tank itself.
The top shows a peculiar assortment of equipment.
In the middle is the opening for a snorkel system. However, the system was never installed and so the holes for securing the snorkel is missing altogether.
To the right of the commander's hatch is what was supposed to be the gunner's hatch. However, since the tank was equipped with a rangefinder salvaged from another project the gunner had to be moved to the left side of the tank, being placed right in front of the commander. The hatch is now used by the right-side loader.
Behind the commander's hatch is a fan and right behind that is a compression filter. As Kampfgruppe Hoffmann was originally detailed to operate along the edges of the irradiated Zeelow Heights, it was deemed necessary to install equipment that could pressurise the casemate.
And behind the loader’s hatch is a plate welded into place over what should originally have been a third hatch, designed to ease the stowage of ammunition.
Well, that was the tank itself. The final picture shows why I need to win one of those spraybooths – the tank is too large to fit into my homemade booth... ;D
Oh yes... Today the Jagdpanzer E 100 fired up its engines for the first time and left the workshop, heading for the paintbooth...
Man, what a rush to finally getting it done...
I’ve spent almost a month just turning it over and over in my hands, wondering what to do with it. Originally I had planned to festoon it with stowage, camo-netting, crew, tank riders, tools, whatever to show a tank that was working on the fringes of the Third Reich towards the end of the war. But the more stowage I added, the more displeased I was with the result.
Finally, three days ago, I figured out what was wrong. The tank is simply so big that the stowage looks absolutely ridiculously out of place. I just couldn’t make it all click together without covering the entire tank. And I still wanted to preserve the overall smooth lines of the hull so...
Three days ago I simply tore off all the gubbinz. That, of course, left me with a pitted and cratered surface, filled with holes and patches of half-melted plastic where the stowage had been glued on. So I had to cover the entire casemate in 0.5 mm. plastic-sheets to cover it all and then seal the edges with brownstuff. The next two days was spent running greenstuff welding seams around the tank to recreate the texture that shows the areas where the armour plates meet. Yes, I know, it looks a bit overdone but that was the whole look that I was going after. I wanted to model a tank that had obviously been crudely welded together from whatever types of steel plates were available at Krupp towards late ’45 or early ’46.
This then, is the completed Jagdpanzer E 100 Ausf. a as it would look in the spring of 1947. Or, as I have nicknamed it, the Frankentank...
The front show the extremely thick glacis plate, measuring a full 200 mm. angled at 60 degrees, and the fearsome 15 cm. KwK L/63 anti-tank gun.
A close up of the front shows the top of the casemate with the gunners periscope in the foreground and Oberleutnant Jürgen Hoffmann, commander of Kampfgruppe Hoffmann (consisting of his Jagdpanzer and a small mixed unit of Heer and Volksgrenadier troops – a sorry lot to be sure, but at this point in the war you should count yourself fortunate to have a unit to command at all...).
Also, if you look closely at the commander’s hatch you might notice small pieces of plastic-sheet in the openings. For some reason the kit didn’t include optics for the hatch so I had to make my own, using plastic-sheets backed by greenstuff.
The rear shows the engine deck and the tools stowed away there. It also shows the small double-hatch leading into the tank itself.
The top shows a peculiar assortment of equipment.
In the middle is the opening for a snorkel system. However, the system was never installed and so the holes for securing the snorkel is missing altogether.
To the right of the commander's hatch is what was supposed to be the gunner's hatch. However, since the tank was equipped with a rangefinder salvaged from another project the gunner had to be moved to the left side of the tank, being placed right in front of the commander. The hatch is now used by the right-side loader.
Behind the commander's hatch is a fan and right behind that is a compression filter. As Kampfgruppe Hoffmann was originally detailed to operate along the edges of the irradiated Zeelow Heights, it was deemed necessary to install equipment that could pressurise the casemate.
And behind the loader’s hatch is a plate welded into place over what should originally have been a third hatch, designed to ease the stowage of ammunition.
Well, that was the tank itself. The final picture shows why I need to win one of those spraybooths – the tank is too large to fit into my homemade booth... ;D
