12.8cm Sf. L/61 Pz.Sf.V Sturer Emil

Modeling Subjects Armor
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I have been getting a bit bored grinding through a fair few Soviet tanks which I like…but they get a bit “samey” after a while.

So I thought I would push the boat out and see if I could do something different for a change.

Ive always had a thing for Dicker Max but I have no idea how one would go about the suspension and it also has some nasty louvres so I plumped for the next best thing which is Sturer Emil.

I could go the easy route and just do one with the tarpaulin over the top but I decided I would see if I could do the open topped version.

This is going to be woefully slow as there is a whole lot of ridiculously fiddly bits and I am not even sure it can be done given the fact that the gun compartment penetrates deep down into the hull making suspension systems a bit cramped.

Either way, I bought the 1/35 Trumpeter kit and started measuring and multipling. I did not realise how small 1/32 kits are in real life.

I started on the swing arms and just made them from brass and bits of steel rod iinside bits of steel tube and whole lot of silver solder.

A lot of filing and grinding and I got there in the end. My plan is to use Panther road wheels … 100% not correct in terms of the “teeth” on the track but they actually do not look a million miles from the pictures I could find and they will fit some tracks I have.

Then I jumped in the deep end and started on the back end of the gun assembly. There is a lot to do on this and small bits but I roughed out the breech and some of the mount from lumps of aluminium and brass and steel and kind of stuck it all together. Lot more to do with this bit.

This model has a huge amount of surfaces and that meant a lot of measuring and laying out on sheet and then chain drilling, filing and hand fitting.

I also did some work on my motors…they just fit between the two suspension rails and I still need a mount for them

Some of the bits were really annoying - such as the weird rack thing that th egun is going to sit on…this has at least twenty individual plates and putting it together was horrible.

Then the hull started to go together. There are so many angles and so many weird joins that it was a real hassle. But the skeleton of it is in place.

Slowly but surely I put together all the features which involved work I had sorely underestimated.

Even those stupid wooden (brass) slats on the base board took literally weeks…filing each one to the right length ans angle. I managed to get hold of many of the things like grenades and MP40s in metal but a lot of stuff I had to make.

Those damned shells nearly killed me and they still dont look OK.

Everything needs fixing and smoothing out.

The hull looks like I dragged it from a swamp…the surface rust is winning the battle.

I still have to do a radio, the optics and so on. The gun mantlet needed more trigonometry than I remember learning at school…

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The cannon puts everything in perspective… its huge. And my measurements are correct.

Its in a total of four parts - the breech, the mantlet and its tube, the bit in front of that and then the barrel.

They are all held together with a length of M5 studding. This is necessary as the mantlet needs to be removeable to get the casemate off.

Lot of detailing and stuff to do but the cannon is in the home stretch…

Had to make a move on the suspension racks so I did. Got as far as shown but then realized I was missing M2.5 bolts of a very specific length for the swing arms so I have to wait for those. Otherwise test fits of the road wheels showed no problems and every thing is swinging freely and not binding.

Mounting the motors meant I had to make some cuts in the mounts to accommodate the shaft rings that will hold the swing arms in place but that was OK. Also, the entire suspension system is just below the height of the crew platform which cuts the hull internal heights so I was glad about that as it was a stress moment.

As can be seen…I have started priming everything as I move towards final assembly. Mudguards are next, then it will be the drive shafts.

I tried to track down the Aber dimple plate for 1/16 but got one and realized I woul dneed four packs. They are hard to get and expensive so I am think there will not be any dimple plates. It would raise the cost of teh tank by 50% and thats a bit daft in my opinion.

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Wow! You’ve been doing tons of work!

S.H.

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That is a big gun! Love following along on your projects.

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That’s insane but in a good way!!!

I can’t even get a kit from a box built and you’re scratch-building all of this!

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I love scratchbuilt projects.

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Today I fitted on my swing arms and connected up the springs to the racks. Had to tweak a few with sleeves on the spring retainers but thats why they were made that way.

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And then I test fitted the wheels which are after market as I have no way of dealing with wheels this big. For the first time ever I got a set of interveaved wheels that are not touching each other and where one is not higher than all the rest!

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Looks good! Gotta love that stupid interweaved road wheel design, what were the German engineers smoking!?!?!

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I have started to paint and test fit components now and identify issues as I go along hopefully. It really needs another coat(s) of paint but with an airbrush this is very annoying to do franky.
There is going to be a probable issue with fitting the casemate around the gun assembly but I was expecting this and I have one good and two dodgy backup plans to fall back on.

The gun itself is back heavy and will need a screw or something to keep it level.

I am waiting for some M2 grub screws before I finally attach the wheel and tracks.

Exhaust pipes need making, the idler mounts need making and a few other things.

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That’s just so amazing! I guess the slab-sided look of German engineering helps here but still that’s fantastic work!

Please keep going with the updates I really want to see how she’s going to turn out!

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Given that there are some ideal W x L proportions for tracked vehicles (too long and can’t turn, too short and won’t go straight) there’s only a limited space for roadwheels long a given hull side.

Now, the diameter of the torsion suspension arms is proportionate to the load, from/to the tracks. So, more arms can be smaller diameter, which means more room inside the hull, over/next to the suspension.

So, that leaves over-lapping the wheel arcs.

Now, that also has some benefits, as the overlapped wheels can be “skinnier” with smaller contact patches (to the limits of permissible ground pressure between the wheels and tracks). This can be handy if the tyres you are using on the roadwheels use strategically-limited materials like rubber. Or the steel in the wheels themselves

Also handy in that the spacing of the interleaved roadwheels can better spread the load across really wide tracks. Which lets you have, say, 10cm tyres to roll on 60cm track.

There’s also some compromise available in that having a broken suspension bar can be more “tollerable” with interleaved wheels.

The engineering makes sense. The extra work for the tankers, maybe not so much.

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Very impressive work. Metal is a medium that requires more tools and patience than I can manage, hats off to you. Do you have a collection of finished projects? I’d love to see a post of some your earlier pieces.

Keep up the good work.

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Hi JoeSMG

I dont really have a collection…just a fairly random set of tanks sitting on a bookshelf.

Some of them are on here:

A T-80 which is unfinsihed but I will deal with completing it next I think. Otherwise I will surely lose some bits of it.

https://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/3/t/192490.aspx

An Su-12 which is too big for a shelf and is my daily runner:

https://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/3/t/192117.aspx

A tiny T-50 which is finished:

https://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/3/t/190938.aspx

A KV U-19 which was finished:

https://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/3/t/188537.aspx

A finished Maresal:

https://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/3/t/187060.aspx

A little T-12:

https://cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/3/t/186191.aspx

There were some more - a finished Japanese Chi-Ri, a finished Stug and a finished Minenknacker where I discovered - on final assembly - that I had made a disastrous mistake and went straight in the scrap pile as it really was horrific.

And thats about it.

There was a monster 1:10 scale KV-2 that was eventually too heavy to carry down the stairs so that went for recycling but the only record I have of it is a you tube video where I took it for a spin before trashing its gearboxes when a pebble got jammed in teh tracks.

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his is probably as “assembled” as it has been and Im actually fairly satisified. Some fit and finish issues but nothing major I think.

The motors are working and for once, thanks to some very careful measurements 6 months ago, I do not need shaft collars to hold the drive shafts in place - the gear themselves does th heavy lifting and I dont have to worry about dropping grub screws…

Otherwise…some of the heavy rear end of the gun was offset by the long barrel and the balance issue does not seem so bad at the minute but I will deal with it with a spring or something as suggested.

Sprockets and idlers finally fitted.

Still some coats of paint to go on and some screws to be fitted. Not to mention the wheels.

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Thanks for posting those links, crazy cool work, but you’re killing me with these scrap & recycle comments.

I’m guessing I’d have been willing to part with cash for your rejects.

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Looks fantastic Iposter!!! [ht]

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I am not the most prolific of posters but there comes a time in every tanks life where I cannot resist taking a photo.

And the first time it sits on its own two tracks is one of them.

When all the measurements were made months ago, all the holes drilled ages ago and all the time sunk in it… and then the tracks go on and I do not have to say Fu#¤%&/()()?**^^k it! because of some mistake I made at the very start…thats satisftying.

The road wheels, sprockets and tracks are not mine - I bought them aftermarket off Asiatam. As I cannot make the “dished” in curves on the wheels. But I like them very much.

Still need return roller hubcaps, an exhaust, adjustment of the muzzle brake and a few other things but I can really see th eend of the road at this point…

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Nice work.

S.H.

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Finished construction on this today. Some screws to be tightened, some to be loosened maybe.

It now goes on the shelf until I get enthused enough to kit it out for mobility. I have all the stuff already but need to clear another tank off the bench before I start messing around with soldering and wires and stuff.

This all took a bit longer than anticipated but at least its done now.
Thanks for folloiwng along and when I do get it to move, I will post a video or something.

Cheers

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1 Like
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Good work!

S.H.