Panther 214 1st SS Panzer Division, Ardenne December, 1944

Good day all!

From September 1944 onward Panther's received factory applied camouflage paint schemes rather than having them applied in the field. Rech's Panther was a M.A.N. Factory produced Panther. I am not aware of any good quality photos of this tank other than what I have seen  from the Book Duel in the Mist and various film footage of it participating in the attack on Stoumont on December 19th, 1944. Therefore, this is my interpretation of  what I think Rech's panther essentially looked like. Here are a few pictures of my paint job. Hope you like it. Next up will be weathering.

Here's the link to the build pictures if you wish to take a look.
http://totalwarinscale.blogspot.com/2010/08/panther-214-build.html

Final Panther G 11th Panzer Division-Bavaria

Here is another Panther G I am in the process of finishing. This time time serving with the 11th Panzer Division at the end of the war in Bavaria. This is a M.A.N. Panther with such final production features as steel road wheels in the 8th position, flamenvernichter (Flame dampener) exhausts and no AA MG ring on the cupola.

Panther 214 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte, Ardenne, December, 1944

Here is another one of my current builds. This Panther G is going to be the mount of  Unscha. Rech who commanded Tank 214 of the 2nd Company of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte. The 2nd company  attacked Stoumont on December 19, 1944 as part of the Ardenne Offensive. Rech's tank has figured prominently in some of the most well known film footage taken during the battle of the bulge. Most notable is the film sequence of Rech's Panther with one of it's left schurzen dangling along with one of the shurzen on the roof of the turret being directed down Stoumont's rue du village street by  Htstuf. Klaus Diefenthal during the attack on Stoumont.


This kit is DML's 6267 Panther G Early Production Pz. Rgt 26 Italian Front.The kit states it an early G but can be built as a later G. I tried to do this build OOTB as much as possible. As you can see I added some photo etch but not a great deal. My references for Rech's panther were Duel in the Mist (an excellent resource) and some suggestions from Roddy MacDougall  who is one of the authors of DITM.


 I still have a few things to do such as adding the retaining pins to the track cable on the rear deck and adding a few more chains to the track retaining pins. I found that these are quite fine and not so easy to see on the model. When painting the model they can easily get covered over so I decided to leave them off and will add them as part of my final detailing.

Tiger 112 of s.Pz. Abt 501

Here is my latest completed project. It is Tiger 112 of the 501st Heavy Tank Battalion on the road to Pont Du Fahs, Tunisia in January 1943.