EB, I gree wholeheartedly agree about US artillery. Aside from VT fuses, they are not given the credit due for their contibution to the victory in western Europe in most histories. The US did not field a round for the 76mm gun worthy of it for anti tank work until the APDS (Armor Percing Discarding Sabot), AKA “Hypershot”, which was primarily issued to Tank Destroyers due to doctrine. When it became available to tankers more widely in 1945 it levelled the playing field considerably having ballistics better than the 75mm KwK40. And the 90mm actually performed roughly equivalant to the 88mm Flak 36/Kwk 42, but was outdone by the 88mm Kwk 43 on the King Tiger & Jagd Panther. Yet it could still defeat both of them in standard combat situations. By the time of Korea, both the 76mm and 90mm US tank rounds had been improved enough to easily deal with the T-34/85, with the 90mm AP often going thru the frontal armor and exiting the rear.
I beleive that you mentioned the bazooka round as well. The initial Bazooka round was adequete for the Panzer Mk. IV, but had difficulty with the later heavies in 1944/45. Darby’s Rangers were able to use it to great effect in 1943 in Sicily against German heavies, but that was under “most favorable conditions”. In Korea the same problem happened for Task Force Smith, which still had the original 2.36" launcher and initial US forces there as well, but the 3.5" bazooka had been developed duiring late WWI and was deployed to the battlefield by late summer 1950 and also helped to end the T-34’s dominance on that battlefield.
BTW, I am no expert on weaponry either. But I do love to read up on it
Some nice info there guys. I have heard of Hypershot, but didn’t realise it was APDS. The whole gunnery aspect is not something I know a great deal about when it comes to German armour, something I think I need to study a bit more.
I haven’t touched the panther in a few days as I have been working on the SS camo for the figures uniforms. But as I am about to take it back to the spray booth for the dust effects, I thought I would get a few pics up first. All of the tools have been attached along with the periscopes fitted and everything else.
The tracks will be added after the dust effect, still got some work to do on there. That’s it for now.
Eric> Superb looking Cromwell. I just finished reading an article in “Military Heritage” magazine about the British attacks at Caen which contains an image of a column of Cromwells on the road. Yours is spot on.
Bish> Lovely paint scheme. Are you going to do a diorama since you’re working on the figures?
Stik> And the Schnellboat is looking great! What sort of decals does a boat have anyway? [:D]
My C-47 is on the work table now and I hope to have pictures soon. Not much longer till D-Day. [:)]
Thanks GAF, and ye, that’s the plan. I already have 5 armour kits that are built and awaiting dio’s because I didn’t have the time to complete the full thing. I don’t want to add another, but of course, time is tight what with all these great GB’s.
We have a Schnellboat problem? Barring the “big one” or WWIII in a few weeks the USN will have a Gleaves class DD to swat it away. I’ll be turning the DML 1/350 USS Buchanan into either Forster or Hobson - haven’t quite made up my mind. But it will be bigger than a Schnellboat.This is a ship model, so you’ll be safe enough for several weeks.
It’s gonna look like this with the Flotilla badge on the side of the hull under the cabin and the commander’s initials in the cabin sides.
EB, the DD’s are good for screening, but it took a major daylight raid by the RAF on LeHavre, led by 67 Squadron to finally take care of the Kriegsmarine surface raiders problem
Decals applied… in case you are wondering, the Flotilla Panther is from the kit decals, but the commanders initials are cut apart, letter by letter, from 1/35 ammunition stencils from a Dragon figure set [:|]
to get an idea how small this stuff is, here is a US Nickle for comparison
Yeah, I kind of had an “oh hell” moment when I realized I had to do some more decal cutting after they had been dipped and soaked to seperate the top and bottom letters…Thank goodness for a sharp xacto blade. With the Mk.I eyeball, I wasthinking these things are so tiny, but the camera makes it look good.
Bish, yes, almost there. I need to do washes now, and final topcoat. Sometime in the next week I will call this one done. I lost a lot of modeling time on my days off this week so not as much progress as I had hoped. But getting those markings on was a huge step forward.
According to a USN DD guru on Model Warship, the late war Buchanan should be almost an exact match for Forster, Cory or Hobson. Desron 18 which proved vital at Omaha had Gleaves class also, but that variant had a rather different bridge - some others had major deck fixtures in different positions. But I don’t think there will any heroic modeling required if I stay to these three ships which is good news. DDs all allow the addition of just a lot of junk - they were small ships relative to their crew and had this or that thrown about - a little like tanks loaded with stuff for the infantry. I’ll never be a hard core rivet counter or after market detail fan, but learning to scratch junk might be fun. After all I just spent two weeks making trees. (One thing on the docket for a future armor build - maybe a Priest or half track - are US Army ETO necessities - scale cigarette cartons and wine bottles. There must be a way to scratch them.)
And yea, that’s one bitty boat. I did a 350 U-boat IX and was startled how small it was. Ditto with a pair of 1/700 DDs. Course some of the wizards on Model Warship scratch build microscopic small craft and pier fittings for some of the amazing mega dioramas some do. I admire them, but don’t see going there.
