On basically every picture taken of that beast, even far from action, the schurzen are pretty loose if not torn off. The kit’s are in one solide piece.
For those with any experience on the subject, do you think the kit’s plastic one-piece schurzen are usable if I cut them off, or should I invest in some PE after market?
In any case, I need to get them loose and torn, as I am after that “in action” look…
I don’t want to get caught again in the aftermarket vortex, but as it is a pretty obvious part of the kit…
Problem with just cutting them apart is that they overlap. Also the plastic is probably out of scale. You could cut them apart and use them as a template for making some new ones out of styrene or I have used aluminum flashing for roofing before. Just remember to add the extra bit of overlap to them when making them.
Lazy bastard that I am, PE is now in the mail [whstl]
I was about to buy the very nice Dragon kit, which has every goodie included, on Ebay before the Academy basically fell on my lap at my local dealer… It was a tie between those two, the Academy was cheaper, new tool, construction is simpler, zimmerit is also included, the markings are the same, gun barrel is one piece… I just wish I didn’t have to order AM, but the Schurzen are an important part and I don’t trust my craftmanship [whstl]
Yeah you can make them with thin sheet plastic like ‘for sale’ signs. But the PE is thinner, looks better, and if you want to distress it bends much more like the real thing. I think you made the right choice there, the PE skirts are more than worth the money.
Now I could be wrong,and i’m sure someone will have a picture,which is fine,but I don’t think the plates didn’t bang up and twist like fenders,bullet and impact holes yes,but I didn’t see pics of builds or the real thing twisted or dented like fenders.
Looking at photos of the WW2 German armor that had skirts, the most common battle damage I see is that pieces go missing. They are just sort of hanging on there I guess so that they wouldn’t be hard to remove to get at the wheels.Sorry for the short response.
GM is correct, the plates were simply hung on hangers that were part of a rail that ran along the hull. Not only did it ease serviceing, also mean that is the plates got snagged, they just came off rather then fowl the vehicle.
According to researcher/author Hilary Doyle, Schürzen is about 5mm, so at 1/35 scale you are looking at about 0.14mm thickness. As mentioned, these were hung in place, not welded nor bolted on, though the rail that held them in place was. Along with ease of access to the running gear, I imagine the loose fit would help negate the chances of them getting entangled into the running gear if they did get snagged or hit by something larger than a AT rifle round (which is what they were originally designed to combat against).
Also not aware of them being overlapped. I have done one build with PE skirts and instructions did not indicate this method, maybe they missed something?
Having them all dinged up is a likely a spanish school effect.
Look at the photo the op posted you can clearly see they are overlaped, was they on every panzer? I don’t know. From alot of the photos I’ve seen with them attached you can see a overlap and in some photos that have a missing plate you can see the red oxide primer where the other panel overlaped it before the camo was sprayed over them.
Yeah, the overlapping is common and those pictures were taken away from the front, prior to D-Day ; though it is slight, the overlapping is always there and you can see how loosely they hang.
And indeed, nearly every Panzer IV that has seen a few days of fighting seems to have lost part of or all of its schurzen.
Well! Let’s now hope I don’t screw it up now! [:XX]
Gentlemen, thank you for the enlightenment - never too old to learn something new. It does appear it was standard for Panzer IV shurzen to have the overlap. It’s interesting too that there would be examples where the overlap, when exposed, would have primer visible - would think the base colour be painted up properly at the the factory?
Here is an example where overlap is noticleable where the skirts have shifted after camou was sprayed on (by either crew or field workshop):
The red oxide primer showed up everywhere specially in the later years. Most or some of the inside of the road wheels where left in red oxide as some of the hanging plates could be red oxide inside and camo color outer side or even the entire plate red oxide.
The side armor can be easily scored with a #11 blade and separated. Pe replacements look the best but you can cheat by sanding the edges at a steep angle leaving a thin profile. I did this to the old Tamiya Mk. IV and looked ok. The armor plates fell off during combat and some were missing as seen on period pictures.
Clever! Thanks for the angled sanding tip! I’ll check that out! PE schurzen arrived, as I plan on building a more or less banged up tank in action in Normandy, I think it will look better. But I also got a Tamiya Panther that will need partial schurzen, I’ll try out this trick
You are welcome. You can get the profile thin enough using a wide fingernail sanding board. Also I don’t believe the armor plates would have bent like the thinner fenders. Remember the armor plates were hard steel designed to detonate ap rounds prior to reaching the hull sides so they were pretty stiff. Scuffs and scratches were the usual marks on those.
