Hi Guys
Just thought I'd share this weeks progress
I started out by roughing out the base, this will be a West German town around Feb / March 1945. I plan to put a narrow cobbled street on a slope with a roadblock containing the Citroen Traction (partly burnt out) and other junk with a large archway at the back and buildings down both sides. The halftrack will be aiming over the roadblock whilst the crew and other soldiers are readying for an attack.
I will add plenty of detail in the buildings to bring this to life.
I cut a piece of board to fit and then fixed some board on a slant as my base, the card board is just an indication of the building height and placement.
Most of the week has been spent putting together the halftrack.
As I usually find with Dragon kits the quality is excellent, with lots of extras in the box including a turned aluminium barrel, a small etch fret, 5 figures (which I will not use on this build), 2 discarded jackets, aluminium and plastic shells and shell boxes and storage tubes, loads of decals including markings for the cases and 2 different pattern full sets of tracks! All for £32 including delivery!!!
The other thing that I usually find is that there are some faults with the instructions, particularly in this case with the Pak 40. There are a few issues with no marking points throughout but the biggest issue was with mating the gun with the vehicle mount as there were 2 female pins which would have left the gun really high and unsupported. After a bit of pondering I cut both off and it all fits together perfectly. I guess that part of the modellers art is working these things out!
I have not stuck the interior together yet so I can paint and weather lots of details with no obstruction.
I can leave this aside now and move forward with the base.
I hope everyone is having as much fun building as I am!
