Hetzer ambush and Tiger tank down, two new 1/144 dioramas

As I still work on a lot new stuff, but got nothing finished, I present two small diorama which I finalised in the last weeks. With both I started a very long time ago, but never finished them. 

The first one is a Hetzer tank in an ambush somewhere in Europe. Base is a piece of gypsum decorated with nearly every piece of green I could find.

The second one, I created after the gun of one Tiger tank broke by an accident. So I remembered a famous picture of an Tiger tank in Normandy. 

Pionierlandungsboot 39 final version

Finally, I finished the design of the smaller first German landing craft. With the design of the Pionierlandungsboot 39 the German Wehrmacht ( not the Kriegsmarine) had their first own ship. The Wehrmacht realized latest with the planning for Operation sealion that they needed own transport and crossing units. I forgot how many units the Germans built, but it was the most used landing craft.
By end of this week I will publish the design on shapeways, so that everybody can buy it.
My own own is so far ready, but I still need to decide in which colours I will paint it.
Therefore you get today only pictures of a half painted Pionierlandungsboot 39.

top and bottom of the Pionierlandungsboot 39

Pionierlandungsboot 39 still under construction

tanks in German ruins

While I wait for my last shipment from Shapeways I show you some old work. I hope you like it anyway. Next week I will present some new stuff here.

1/144 street fighting

1/144 Tiger in ruins

new tanks in 1/ 144 from a new company 4D

Last weekend I got a box of 16 new tanks easy to assemble. I bought them on Ebay, price was okay and now having the tanks in my hands, I can say even the quality is okay. As you can see on the pictures below, they do need much assembly and they are slidly prepainted. The only thing I do not understand, is the French AMX, all other tanks are WWII tanks but the AMX is an after war tank.

Sd. Anh. 121 Kässbohrer not Culemeyer but a 1/144 tank transporter

Sd. Anh. 121 Kässbohrer not Culemeyer but a 1/144 tank transporter

It was more an accident than a real plan that I started with this new trailer for tank transportation. I knew a bit about it when I was looking for my Culemeyer trailer. Then I heard, there was another design out, but , year not not too much information was found. So I finished the Culemeyer design and thought that's it. But this weekend I was searching for a French truck, a Bernhard, which was used by the French Army for tank transportation, when I found again my Kässbohrer. There was a discussion that many writers told it a Culemeyer design but it should be a design from the German company Kässbohrer. They are very famous for their buses and - for the "Pistenbully". No idea what a Pistenbully is? Google it, you will be surprised.  In the past Kässbohrer had again designed a heavy tank transporter but for the German Bundeswehr. It is called "Elefant" or and it is a very impressive set, trailer and truck. I believe the official name is "Panzertransporter SLT 50 3 Elefant".
Back to my new Sonderanhänger 121. First stop was at KFz. of the Wehrmacht, there it was confirmed, the correct number was Sd. Anh. 121.  So it would be my third sondernanhänger after the 115, the 116 and now the 121.
Google showed me very fast the few original pictures, all taken after the war. The best was from a show in Strasbourg and it shows a King Tiger on his Journey to the USA.
So there is a model which you can buy in the scale 1/35 from a German company. Here I found a short report about that kit, which gave me enough ideas to design it by myself.

After less than one saturday afternoon and a longer night it was done.

1/144 Sd. Anh. 121

1/144 not a Culemeyer but a tank transporter

1/144 side view of Sd. Anh. 121

at the moment the kit will come without the ramps

Here a picture from the original one, source for the picture is the National archive NARA:

british tank on vacation

Okay honestly I have no idea if this tank is really travelling or if it was just sold to a new owner. It tried to pass the Swiss- German border last week but the border patrol told me, that not all papers had been cleared. So the tank is waiting there now for more than one week.

So be happy that you can cross the border much faster :-)

8 x 8 Einheitsdiesel or MAN Sperrbrecher, amphibious truck

The Germans made several attempts to standardize all trucks and cars. So one product was the well known Einheitsdiesel. This 6x6 version saw production with all bigger German truck manufacturers.
A very good overview you can find here: overview.

During development they thought about a 8x8 variant as well. Finally they decided to build 4 prototypes of this 8x8 truck. MAN got the order and build the 4 prototypes. Tests were made but somehow it looks like the results were not that convincing that the mass production started. So these 4 trucks left and were converted into so called "Sperrbrecher". Sperrbrecher means something like breaking through a barricade. A bit strange this maning. A bit more information about the 8x8 Sperrbrecher can you read here. There are not that much picture, so here you can see one from the testing in Austria.

It took me awhile to get all needed information and to start with the drawing.
Anyway I have to say, a lot of the dimensions are assumptions as I had only some basic dimensions I found no drawing for the final version.

1/114 design of the 8x8 Sperrbrecher

1/114 design of the 8x8 Sperrbrecher

The 1/114 modell of the 8X8 Einheitsdiesel:

I decided to go with two different designs. First of all, the one where I found some pictures and were I can say, yes this truck existed and was used in the Wehrmacht. The second design was a bit tricky. I found some sources, saying, that at least two trucks got a spade and a 40 ton winch. As MAN build these trucks, it is not so unrealistic, MAN build the Panther Bergepanzer, and yes they had a spade and a 40 ton winch for recovery use.
I hope you like the second version too, even I have no picture proofing his existence.

1/144 8x8 Einheitsdiesel

all German Einheitsdiesel trucks in 1/144

the Sperrbrecher with the winch and the spade

the Sperrbrecher with the winch and the spade

1/144 Einheitsdiesel with winch and spade as a recovery truck

1/144 8x8 Einheitsdiesel

1/144 8x8 Einheitsdiesel

1/144 8x8 Einheitsdiesel