WARNING! THIS IS A VERY LONG POST 
. TAKE A SEAT, RELAX 
AND TRY TO FOLLOW THE FLOW 
. I APOLOGIZE FOR THAT BUT I HOPE YOU WILL LIKE IT ANYWAY. 
Now that ground work for my diorama has been done I have started the building of the vehicles included in it.
The first of them is a German Krupp “Protze”, a kind of medium sized truck often used by the German Army to deliver light weapons and ammunition, as well as useful field equipment for all sorts of troops. It could also carry light guns and rocket launchers as the Nebelwerfer.
Most of them were field camouflaged but not all. Their usual appearance was in plain German Gray (Dunkelgrau), a sort of very dark Blue Gray, which sometimes almost appeared as being almost Black.
On the Western Front they were rarer to be seen and some maintained their original color from the initial phase of the war as in this case. This is why I decided to include it to my diorama. It marks a sort of indication of the beginning of paint shortages that befell troops during the last phases of the war.
And here is now what I have done so far with this vintage Tamiya 1/35 scale kit.
There are still parts missing and I will still need to weather it appropriately. Moreover, I will also cram it with various boxes, containers and tools, as well as light weapons and ammo.
Once finished I will add the so completed model to this collection of pictures, but for now I just show the progress I made thus far.
Please note that the wooden planks that appear on the rear bridge of the truck were painted in Vallejo’s “New Wood” #311 from their Panzer Aces line and once fully dried covered with AK Interactive RAL7021 Dunkelgrau (AK704), leaving a shade of the underneath wooden origin to show through.
The seats were plainly painted with AK 3GEN Ocher Khaki (AK11422) to simulate the canvas that covered them.
The shield seen here above belongs to a so called Panzerschreck, the German version of the American Bazooka, which was painted in AK Interactive RAL7028 Dunkelgelb (initial) (AK753), which in Normandy was the predominant basic camouflage.
What you see in the above two pictures are a few additions to the build included in the box, of which there are weapons and tools. The KAR98 or Karabiner 98 (rifle) is just in its initial phases of painting and so are the rest of these additions. They will additionally be detailed and weathered.
The Mortars and their ammunition, as well as the ammo boxes for the MG42 included were painted in German Field Gray II by Vallejo, which was the general regulation paint required on them.
The two duffle bags that follow were painted in a light buff color mixing various paints together to obtain the right shade. They too will require more refinement and weathering.
These are the rear wheels of the truck. They are quite different from their frontal counterparts and as you can observe, the Dunkelgrau and the Black of the Wheels tend to merge perfectly together, although the rubber part of the wheels will have to be firther worked on with shades of Vallejo’s Dark Rubber and finished with Light Rubber.
These are the front Wheels.
And these are the spares.
Included with the kit are also these two boxes which I simply painted in Vallejo’s New Wood, but will have to be weathered with Dark Umber and Old Wood later on only to receive a further aging effect with a general wash of Neutral Gray.
Also included is just a fuel canister which I painted in AK Interactive RAL7028 Dunkelgelb ausf. '44 DG I (AK713). I will add more of them to the rest of the cargo.
Since I lost the original plastic transparency provided by Tamiya, I took some measures of the actual frame and cut out a clear plastic part to reproduce the original one and glued it with Micro Kristal Klear. The rim around it has still to be painted.
Underneath it is an Alliance Model Works stencil expressly dedicated to paint the the wheel hubs of the Krupp Protze.
And here is a preliminary look at the assembled Krupp Protze Truck. Still missing are the front and back lights, the fender, the cargo load and of course the driver with the steering wheel which will be glued to the figure and then applied to the steering wheel arm. But the figure will only be assembled and painted with the rest of the figures after I have completed all the vehicles included in the diorama, and therefore will only be added to the truck much later.
As said the vehicle still needs some weathering, dusting and aging.
As you can see the front wheels as movable from side to side, while the rear wheels, although planned by Tamiya to be rotating had a very bad and flimsy attachment and kept bending in all directions never keeping straight upright as the should and so I had to detach them and glue them on with CA glue, the only way to have them steady in place.
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Although I previously announced that I only would post pictures of the model when inserted in the diorama, I decided to anyway post more of them of my continuing progress and therefore here they are.
I have now completed the vehicle with all the remaining little details I had prepared for it in an earlier phase.
I still have to find a better driver figure for it, but I already placed the driving wheel in its place just to show it to you all. The cargo bay to the rear has already been filled with boxes and cases, as well as a few weapons, but is still incomplete, waiting for further ammunition cases.
I have also decided to include two more figures to the very rear of this section, but for now I just placed the “old” driver in, just to see how much space is needed for those two additional figures.
As you can see some weathering has already been done, although rather discreetly as not to be too overbearing at first sight.
And again you may observe that I finally applied few more details, such as distance markers, unit flag support, the front lights and the fender. I also painted the license plate in white which will contain the registration numbers of the Wehrmacht.
A side view of both the cockpit and the rear cargo bridge. You may notice that I have placed a phone box on the passenger seat.
A better view of the ensemble.
As you can see I have already filled the cargo bay with various boxes and crates. The duffle bags have been places at the farther corner of the bay and the fuel canister behind one of them. The two smaller boxes are on the floor and on top I have place the MG42 and an empty gas container.
On the right hand side of the Protze there are a pickaxe and and axe. I painted the metal parts with AK Interactive Gun Metal (AK 483) from the Extreme Metal line of products, while the handles which I previously painted with Vallejo’s New Wood (Panzer Aces #311) where considerably toned down with a wash which I mixed myself with a combination Vallejo’s Flat Earth (70983) 3 drops / Neutral Gray (70992) 4 drops / White (70951) 5 drops and AK Interactive Acrylic Thinner (AK11500) 15 drops and very slightly passed over them with a 00000 brush. Once dry I added Vallejo German Gray (70995) on the tool grips holding them with a similar very thin brush.
An above view of the cockpit and the cargo bay taken from the left side. There is still enough space on the floor to place at least too ammunition crates and on the seats right and left for smaller boxes. The sandy thing you see crossing over the boxes is the Panzerschreck (the German Bazooka). Underneath it is a 5 cm leichter Granatwerfer 36 (5 cm leGrW 36) mortar.
A better vie of the driver’s seat and the field telephone on the passenger seat.
The left side with the two spades in place.
Here you have a much clearer view of the field telephone placed on the passenger seat.
Somehow I decided to place it there instead of yet another passenger, just because I imagined that a driver of a cargo truck must have had some kind of communication device to keep in touch with his command station.
As you can notice, I have slightly weathered all the wheels. I stayed away from placing too much messy terrain splashes, since such vehicles seldom used off road pathways and rather used normal paved roads or at least compacted earth ones where there was lesser accumulation under the carriage.
As I did for the front fender and its license plate, I also painted the rear one in white to prepare it to receive the WH license numbers.
An above view of the cargo bay.
The above view of the cockpit and the rear cargo bay.
This is not a perfect picture of the rear bay, but you might guess the tiny mortar placed on the floor underneath of the Panzerschreck. You may also notice the upside down axe on the right hand side.
Unfortunately it is very difficult to take a picture of the rear view mirrors I have placed next to the windshield, which I did paint in silver and covered with Deluxe “Looks Like Glass” since the reflection cannot really be seen.
Anyway, once again this might be it for the time being, but do not quit on me just yet, since as soon as I have finished to fill the cargo bay I will show the Krupp Protze where it will appear within my diorama, so stay tuned since more is to come…