Barret, in WW2, I would guess that the life expectancy of most armour would be measured in months rather than years. When it comes to Panthers and Tigers, keep in mind that these only entered service in late 42 in the case of the Tiger and mid 43 for the Panther. If you look at images from Normandy for example, it will be hard to find a panther Ausf D, that was in production less than a year before. If armour wasn’t destroyed completely, it might well be replaced when the unit was refitted with older ones perhaps going back to training units or being converted into some other variant. When it comes to the Tiger II, these were only in service for a year.
Of course, you have to also consider that the use they would have seen during their short life would be greater than most modern AFV’s. The longest I had a Warrior in the field was 6 months in Iraq, and of course we had the benefit of going back to a proper base at the end of the day with proper repair facilities and good supplies.
In regards to rust on tracks, in particular those actually driving the tank, again, some people go over board. My experience is that when an AFV is sitting in the shed for a few days, then yes, surface rust will build up. But once you start to drive it, it doesn’t take long to come off. And these are tracks that have had the coating worn off. And also, track life is not all that great. On the Warrior, we expected to get I think 5,000KM out of them, less in desert conditions with the sand wearing away the rubber bushes.
I would guess the track on a heavy tank like a Tiger or Tiger II would last even less.
Weathering can be broken down into two parts- the stuff from use & abuse: chipping, rust, soot, etc.; and teh stuff from the environment:mud, dust, dirt, rain streaking… Like Bish, I had a bit of expereince on different AFVs & softskins. His take on things is like mine, modern vehicles are older and more well maintained. Yes they are going to get dirty, dusty, muddy- that is a given. Anywhere that they roll, they take along part of the surrounding terrain with them, just thru the dynamics of their tracks and wheels. But personally I feel that rust and chipping is way overdone as current modeling trends go. The paint on most vehicles is pretty high quality and unless the vehicle has been repeatedly hit by bursts of machine gun fire and artillery barrages, it is not gonna show the “chipping” that is so popular nowadays. Breaking down Bish’s analysis on Tiger & Panther service lives, it is certainly measured in months at most. Oldest/earliest Tigers produced in 1942 and sent to Africa in November were gone within 7 months. Oldest/earliest Panther D’s were sent to Kursk in July 1943 and the majority lost there in combat or mechanical breakdown and overrun. It is rare to come across a photo of a survivor by the end of 1943. Of the hundreds of panzers that were in France on June 5, 1944 on the eve of the invasion or that would be sent there, the vast proportion would be lost in combat within 90 days. Only a handful would survive to fight by fall. Allied losses were not much different. Col Abrams, namesake of today’s M1 Abrams tank, would command and fight seven different M4 Shermans “Thunderbolt” between July 1944 and May 1945. The main difference was that Allied production could keep pace with losses, and still have surplus inventory.
7 in 10 months. I’m surprised they had time to take the wrapper off. That’s some going, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was not uncommon for both sides.
Gamera, thanks. I am not sure if the coating the Germans used is the same as was on, in fact I don’t even know what ours were covered in, just that it was not pleasant to handle. But I have read German tanks were painting black so I have assumed it was something similar if not the same.
I totally agree with the estimates on the average lifespan as presented here. I also think some modelers are aware of this fact, but go ahead and overdo the weathering just because they like how it looks - to each their own as they say.
I’m sure there are tables out there, likely in some of Jentz’s publications, where you could cross examine monthly production, losses, and serviceable vehicles, and arrive at some kind of average for a given vehicle type. I found something close here, but what really is staggering is the total losses by Soviet forces for the whole of the war - 96,600! Now that is a lot of scrap metal.
I can’t add anything about a protective coating on German spare track links, but I did come across mention of a release agent used to facilitate their removal from molds - could that possibly be the black coating?
I guess there’s a balance between realism and artistry. I am sure we all use a bit of artistic licence here and there, painting a fire extinguisher red when it should be the same as the vehicle for example. It just depends where on the scale between the 2 you want to be.
Sometimes, when you try and go more towards realism and you see builds that are more artistic, you just feel like your build is wrong. I think its the same mind set we have when we want to do a scheme that’s been applied with a mop. The pics tell you its not neat and tidy, but your head tells you its wrong. It can be difficult to get over the mind set.
Trabi, now that is very very nice indeed. That is a real little gem. Thank you so much for building it here. Your GB badge is well earnt. If its ok with you, I will use the first of your B&W pics for the front page.
Lovely mini Churchill - you have better eyes than mine. (I’ve got the 1/35 AFV version and am a little scared of it.)
Everyone’s right about the life span of WWII AFVs (or aircraft for that matter.) On the other hand, the huge numbers produced were in modern terms huge. German numbers lacked a digit when compared to US or Rooskie models, but figure about 6,000 Panthers and 1800 Tiger I/IIs. More Stugs and Panzer IVs. Now out of that lot some would have lucked out, and might have stuck around for some time. You can bet they didn’t throw tanks away. By 1944 everyone knew how important vehicle removal was and everyone had tank parks pretty close to the battlefield. (Germans tended to use Tigers especially in a defensive and took great care not to put them where they might lose ground and thus the tanks. Didn’t work ultimately and a very high % of both Tigers and Panthers were captured after being abandoned.) Zaloga makes the point that US vehicles had more robust paint jobs than did the German counterparts (especially anything put over Dunkelgelb) although prone to fading. Anyway, I’d guess there were some pretty tired and beat up tanks running around the battlefield in everyone’s army - and even if the % was low, we’re probably talking several hundred vehicles. So I’d say that you have historical license to weather a vehicle as it was on “delivery day” (what ship modelers would call a “commission day” model) - although even then you’d want some weathering to show shadows. And as noted, once a vehicle moved it got dusty. But you’d also have history on your side if you wanted to do a “heavy weather” special. I’ve seen several photos of US Shermans in 1945 that looked very weary.
Same is true with aircraft. There’s a nice documentary I have on a P-47 squadron in 1945 and they were flying some very old models that showed their age interspersed with spanking new birds. I think you could make a solid argument that ship models are under weathered - color films of USN vessels in 1944-45 when they were operating out of their temporary harbors, clearly shows a lot of seriously “distressed” ships. But many were “ship shape.” WWII was a war of incredible numbers and I’d guess that almost everything happened at least once. So perhaps the Spanish school guys don’t aim for the “typical” - but I’d say they do model the “possible.” Methinks that artistic license could find some historical support across the board.
Well you can go possbility vs probabilty, I know you can find examples of both. Lets just say that the odds were against long life spans on WWII tanks. Take a look at this photo of the 752nd Tank Battalion in Italy at the end of the war. Alomst all new 76mm M4s. But look closely at the front row, front and center, and there is an early model M4 present- dircet vision slots, three piece transmission cover, collarless M34 gun mantlet, everything from an initial 1942 production variant. Perhaps the crew felt lucky in such along serving & surviving tank? In spite of newer and better armed & armored versions obviously being available.
I’m sure there are a blizzard of similar photos out there. AFVs required a good sized “tail” to allow them to work at all. So men were there that could rebuild damaged or worn vehicles. And I’d think there’d have been a real reluctance to waste the tax payer’s money. (grin) But I bet there have been few wars where leaders up the chain haven’t overestimated the strength of field units whether because of bad accounting or wishful thinking: a good reason to keep what you had working. If nothing else there was usually something you could do with a spare whatever. (One field I have studied is Vietnam. Field strength of US divisions or battalions were almost always given at near 100%. When you added in illness, people circulating through the system, shirking and a kind of imposed discharge of bad soldiers by their NCOs or comrades -can’t tell you how often I was told you were better off with a 7 man squad that you could trust than a 10 man squad that included men that were unreliable for reasons that ran the gamut of mental illness to severe clumsiness - the “boots in the grass” never matched those on paper.)
The useful life for some types of weapons was longer than others, but the earliest Sherman or T-34 would have been a very dangerous foe for some German infantry strongpoint lacking anti-tank guns or armor support at any time during the war. (I do have a photo of a Brit Grant fighting in NW Europe in 1945 - lord knows how that got there.) And there were always secondary theaters. Heaven knows what the Germans were using to police the Balkans or Norway. I wouldn’t be amazed (well, maybe a little) if the Brits had Sopwith Snipes in the CBI - if not, certainly early model Hurricanes. And there were the allies. During the Cold War the Rooskies were famous for never throwing anything away - bet that started in WWII. And if there was a Panzer III not needed for tank school, there was always the Hungarians. And if there was a flyable P40E I’m sure a Chinese pilot could have been found to fly it. (I admit to being fond of heavy weather. I’m trying to cook up a couple of CBI projects - it was at the bottom of everyone’s strategic wish list and there was quite a collection of anything could shoot there and I don’t think standards of tidiness were very high.
But I certainly have no quibbles with the major point that it’s easy to seriously over-use techniques like chipping and rusting. Dirt, dust, mud and some kind of crew caused wear are another matter. Oddly, you don’t often see minor battle damaged emulated. I couldn’t guess numbers, but I’d guess the number of AFVs that took mortar, artillery or small arms fire would have been pretty high. Kind of hard to image a .50 caliber slug or a piece of shrapnel not scratching the paint.
Yeah, I am quite familiar with the tail to tooth ratio of mech/armored units. And all the fun stuff about manning. And of course, yes, there is always that old outdated piece of equipment that should not be somewhere, but somehow is.
Yes, minor battle damage is rarely modeled for some reason, at least in armor. Who knows as to why that is… and yes indeed, those shrapnel and machine gun round impacts, will ding up the paint and armor. Just enough to be noticable.
I finally made some near final progress on my Schnellboot today. Washes and tints applied and cleaned up…
Tomorrows plan is flat coat, drybrushing, and call this one done…
It’s been awhile since I’ve posted anything, and I figured it was about time. I’ve been trying to get the crew for the LCVP to look right, and I think I’ve gotten the clothing down, but I just can’t seem to get the faces to look right. Guess I’ll just have to settle for the best I can do right now. I still have to finish assembling the gunners, apply a wash for the shadows, and then give them a dull coat. But here they are for what they’re worth.
WOW I just realized I haven’t been on here in a while, dang where did the time go? Catching up I see some pretty awesome work going on here. Life has been getting in the way. Well I got my airbrush back and went to work on the C-47. I should remember the whole, spray gray down before white thing in the future. I don’t know why I haven’t done this before, but it’s a whole lot easier and less stressful then if there was no gray. Though I need another coat of white since this was freshly painted and I can still see gray in some areas. Any one with good ideas on how to mask the vertical stripes around the tail? Going to be a pain to keep those things straight! Here she is at the moment: I also got the base stained and the molds for the extra figures done. Just need to make copies and paint them.
Trabi - awesome job on that little bridge layer [Y]
Stik - looking great, with that size one swipe and the dry brushing should be done - lol!
B17Pilot - nice C-47 happening there. Only advice I can give for the stripes is to rely on the panel lines or other details to keep the masking tape parallel.
silentbob33 - one key thing about figures are the faces, particularly the eyes. You really have to nail that area, otherwise it ruins the whole presentation. It is really difficult at this scale to do the eyes by just dabs of white followed with a smaller darker dab for the pupils, unless you are doing someone like Marty Feldman.
I’d suggest this video for some tips on painting eyes. The example is a bit bigger scale, but the principle of using a flesh tone to paint around the eyes afterwards to clean up the size and shape is vital:
If that is too much at this time, what you can do is just use a flesh colour overall, and then give it a red/brown wash, and let that dictate what details are seen.
Yep, that’s one of mine. Thanks for that link jack, that’s really handy. I have saved that and will be using that on my N African build which I am starting next.
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