Montag, 22. Juni 2015

Molch a German unsuccessful Mini submarine

I started with something new, not a tank, nothing in relation with tanks.
I designed a submarine. As there are a lot of German submarines ready to get bought, I designed something more smaller. One of the first German Kleinkampfmittel. These new designs were planed to change the war, as at this time the German army was already on all fronts on the way back.
The Molch was everything but not successfull. Therefore the Germans used them after two attacks for training only.
If you are interested in the history or pictures, please use these two links:





Molch printed in standard white material

Molch in frosted detail printed

first test with the trailer

Molch ready to dive

Molch with his 3 axis trailer

the first two Moch ready for action

Molch and trailer ready painted

Hanomag SS 100 and Molch with trailer
Most times the Hanomag SS 100 was used to bring the subs to the ports.
After the design of the submarine I designed the trailer, so that with a tractor, the unit would be flexible.
There is a one famous picture, it shows the Molch and a LWS, Landwasserschlepper during the first trails.
Here is the old picture:
LWS and Molch during first trials

and with the wonderful LWS from CDG (CGD) we put this in 1/144 as well.







Donnerstag, 11. Juni 2015

Nebelwerfer in travelling position

In the last days I have updated my Nebelwerfer a bit. I changed the position of the legs, so that I can use them to be towed behind trucks or other vehicles.
So here some pictures of the new design.
If you are interested, you can buy them now at my Shapeways shop.









Mittwoch, 20. Mai 2015

German Army Museum in Dresden

Last weekend I had a chance to visit the new German Army Museum in Dresden.
Who knows Munster and comes to Dresden to see tanks will be very disappointed. 
Dresden is a Museum to explain and show different aspects of war or aggressive conflicts. No wonder that you can see there things from more than 500 years history. From early knights, their weapons, the evolution of riffles and much more to cold war exponents, they show a lot.
The most interesting part for me was of course the WW II department. As I said, not that much tanks, only some vehicles but therefore you could see what war means in relation to movies, to civil people and a lot more aspects I never thought about. At the end I found some tanks outside, most of them after WWII. On the other side they showed for example which animals humans had used or still use to support them for fighting. 
Here is are some highlights which I liked the most.




A Horch from Paris, later used by General De Gaulle



A German Einheitskübel



An American Tank from WWII



This is the rest from a German Submarine, a Seehund, which was found some years ago



the model of the so called PAris gun from WWI



German Shelters from WWII



okay the paining is strange, but it is a German Marder



150 mm search light

Freitag, 8. Mai 2015

Sherman DWG (Deep Wading Gear) on the beach in Normandy

As D-Day comes closer I have started to get my shermans ready to jump onto the beaches of Normandy.
So one of the first modifications is this Sherman with a deep wading gear. Some other variants of the Sherman  will follow in the next weeks.

The first two pictures show the old Metal Troops model of the Sherman DWG.



Here is my version, based on a Dragon Sherman which had the right back to install the dwg to it.



The device is again printed in 3D. 
If you are interested in this version, so send me an email and I will offer the print via Shapeways.

Donnerstag, 16. April 2015

Sherman T1 E3 mine exploder

It took a while to draw this special Sherman tank. Quickly I found out, that the drawing from George Bradford in his Book "American Armored Fighting Vehicles" is not 100% correct. There are some details missing at the point where the wheels get fixed to the tank hull. So I collected tons of built Sherman with mine Exploder to get the missing details.
The next point was the painting. The get beside the small plates is not that easy, so I had the paint them several times.
Now finished I have to say I like this tank, it is a very unusual tank and tooks very impressive.

If you check Wikipedia, you can see, there are still tons of different variants for the Sherman tank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman_variants








Dienstag, 3. März 2015

Panzerjägertriebwagen 51 in 1/144

By the end of the war the Germans were building three of these giants on rails. Armed with two Panzer IV turrets they should run in the German Panzerzüge.
The Americans found them at the manufacturing plant Steyr in Münichholz. Other sources talk about Augsburg. Two of them were at Breslau, nearly finished, the Russians got them.
I found on the internet, that one unit was ready to be taken over by the German Wehrmacht. 
Who knows, but anyway, none of them saw action.
Tecnical data are not really reliable, what I found are these data:

total length: 14390 mm
width:            3000 mm
height:           3640 mm

As a basement for my 3D drawing I used the really good book "Panzerzug Teil 2 " from Waldemar Trojca. There you find a drawing from where I took my dimensions.
So here is the first preview after some hours.

Panzerjägertriebwagen 51

And here with the first details, even I have to add much more, but you can already see the progress.





Freitag, 6. Februar 2015

World Tank Museum Versus Serie in 1/144

Today I had to clean up the basement and opened some boxes, laying there for several years.
And while I cleaned up I found a small treasure. One complete unopened Box of the old WTM series.
While I decides to sell it in the next days on Ebay, I thought it would be nice to take a look at the tanks again.
It took me an additional hour to find the pictures of the small dioramas which Takara added the boxes.
So here are the dioramas from the old versus Series:

Tiger versus Sherman in 1/144 Fight


King Tiger versus Joseph Stalin 2

Tank IV versus KV-1

Elephant versus T-34

Panther versus Sherman

1/144 Tiger advance // Tiger auf dem Vormarsch

Kleines Diorama in 1/144 für das Präsentieren von neuen Modellen Das Diorama eintstand in den letzten Tagen aus einer Laune heraus. Da ich g...