Some mechanicals to go with the Fallschirmjaeger

The last thing I finished off last year was an armoured recon half-track to go with the Fallschirmjaeger platoon I did earlier. Basically I got two half-tracks and a Kubelwagon to create a motorised platoon for the FJ.

 The Kubelwagon is probably superfluous but I can always get a few motorcycle combinations later on for a fully mobile HQ section.  I got the half-tracks and wagon already finished and only needing some minor repairs/touch-ups but the Recon Halftrack was a Blacktree Designs metal kit.

 While I am reasonably pleased with the result, it was possibly the worst kit I have ever had to build.  Firstly, its rough - very rough - and the parts do not fit together.  Even the photo of the completed model on the Blacktree site doesn't - you can see the gaps everywhere.

 But by far the worst was the stupidity of the manufacturer of including two wheel/track guards for the same side.  There is no way you can cut and redo to fit - I was forced to make one of them out of card.  That and the tons of bogging required to fill in the gaps in the model made it a right royal pain in the arse to build. As you are paying over UK$20 for the kit, this really isn't good enough in my opinion.  That said, the completed model looks OK and fits in well with the rest of the models & figures.

On the plus side it comes with a good MG32 and 35mm canon options - I chose the latter - as there is not enough room for both in the cupola. I also added some track and tow bar to the front for further detail.  The figures came in useful as I used one for the missing Kubelwagon driver which fitted well enough (with a bit of surgery) in the smallish wagon model.

Hans - vatch out fur zat verdampten Kfz du Dummkopfen!

The last  pic is the recon/HQ sections.  Click on the pic for an enlargement and feel free to leave a comment.  Happy New Year everyone!

Cheers,

           Doc