"Waiting for the Flood"
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History:
Used in the last years of the war on all fronts, Panterturm installations were Panther tank turrets mounted on fixed concrete, steel or wooden bases providing a low silhouette and good concealment. There were two types of Panterturm turrets, those produced from new or damaged Panther D/A turrets and those specifically built for the purpose. Just Plane Stuff's Pantherstellung kit represents one of the latter.
The Kit:
Those who know me will be surprised to see my name attached to this diorama; being a modeler of 1:72 scale Golden Age civil aircraft, but we all have a dark side, and mine is late war German oddities and tank destroyers as well as odd trucks.
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As soon as I saw Just Plane Stuff's Pantherstellung I wanted it, something about the way it sat on a slight incline and its simplicity really grabbed me. When I saw the Royal Models figures I reviewed in the June IM the whole scene fell together for me.
The Pantherstellung is a very simple kit; a styrofoam resin base, solid resin turret, a small wafer with one of the turret bases lifting hooks, two lengths of different sized wires for the lifting rings and the hatch handles and the CMK aluminum barrel, resin mantlet and muzzle. The Just Plane Stuff parts are excellent but the CMK mantlet has two large ejector marks and the muzzle took quite some time to clean up. It is really hard to complain about any of this too much though as it only took about one hour to have the whole assembly ready for paint. I ended up with a slight bend in the wire handle on the rear of the turret but left it as I thought it added a bit of character.
I first painted the Pantherstellung's metal base a very dark grey (RLM 66), then I painted the simulated wood of the base and the groundwork with Dark Earth, using the same to do some pre-shading on the turret. The RLM 66 overspray which got on the groundwork, once covered with the Dark Earth, gave the impression of the Pantherstellung being recently installed. While I had the paint in the airbrush I used the RLM 66 for the uniform and the Dark Earth for the base skin tone of the Royal Models figure.
The turret was then painted with Vallejo Model Air 027 Sand Yellow which was in turn lightened and sprayed on the larger areas. Some chipping was done with a fine wire and Model Master Chocolate Brown. An oil wash of brown and black was added to the turret and a filter (95% thinner, 5% color) of Humbrol Midstone was sprayed on both the turret and to the basework to unify things.
The turret and its base were then given some streaking by applying small dots of various oil colors (black, white, grey, sap green, cadmium yellow, venitian red, a light blue) to a portion of the model which has been given a bit of thinner, after a few minutes a clean, flat brush is used to pull the colors down. This doesn't look great at first, but continue to pull the colors down and they will soften and blend a bit. If you are having trouble simply re-moisten the brush with thinner and try again.
After the turret and its base had received this treatment and dried overnight a bit of pastels were applied to both of them and I turn to finishing the figure.
The Royal Models figure is very well cast and posed no problems at all in assembly. Once painted I gave the figure a wash of blackish brown oils and began lightening the skin and uniform with oil drybrushing. I wanted to portray a scene from the Italian front so I left my figure a bit darker than normal to represent the tan that I'm sure these soldiers ended up with. I also wanted to give this diorama a bit of color so the umbrella was cleaned up and painted red and given a grey-brown wash and some light grey drybrushing; both the figure and umbrella also received a dusting of pastels.
The figure was then placed on various parts of the turret and it's base until I found a spot that I was happy with, then he was glued in place with some Elmers glue.
My friend, Spanky McFarland,was kind enough to give me a couple of wine bottles which were painted with Tamiya Clear Green; one was drilled out from the bottom and the inside painted red to simulate wine (thanks to Spanky for that tip too!). The 'empty' was placed on the ground in front of the figure.
The 'wooden' edges of the display base were initially painted with Dark Earth at the same time as everything else and as a final touch I gave it a coat of Tamiya Clear Orange.
I though the name 'Waiting for the Flood' was fitting for this scene of a lone German tanker waiting for the advancing Allies and the umbrella gave it a nice twist. Of course, after two bottles of wine, there could also be another meaning!..
Conclusion:
What can I say? I wanted a break form some of my more involved current projects and this was just the ticket! Just Plane Stuff's Pantherstellung is a great kit and opens up as many scenarios as you can imagine. The entire thing was built in a day; from opening the box to weathering amd the figure was just as easy. For those with terminal AMS this is perfect.
I purchased my Pantherstellung from Squadron Mail Order and the Royal Models figure came from Mission Models, thanks to my wallet for both!
