Dragon's 1/35 scale Panther A (late)
Russian Ride

by Jay Laverty

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Several Soviet units operated various marks of German tanks up until the end of the war because, like any sensible army, nothing goes to waste.

The Russians had somewhat of a love/hate relationship with the Panther (as did their German counterparts for that matter) as it was a relatively unreliable vehicle that needed constant servicing and was a gas guzzler. However it did offer improved protection over the T-34's and until the T-34/85 made it's presence felt, gave the Russians the opportunity to engage German armour at a reasonable distance.

I had a hell of a time finding information about the units that operated these vehicles and had to make do with what I could remember from what French the Halton Regional School Board indoctrinated me with. All I could come up with was that it was a unit of the *th Guards army in the area of Warsaw at the time of the uprising ( August 1944 ) and the unit was commanded by a geezer named Lieutenant Colonel Sotnikov. Anyone who can shed more light on the subject please feel free to drop me a line as I could use the info in an article for Military Modelling magazine.

The base kit comes from Dragon and is superb - loaded with detail.

To liven things up a bit I used Eduards etched set for the early A, (meaning I had to scratch build the exhaust fasteners when I installed Moskit's exquisite exhaust pipes) and some persicopes from Fine Molds in the cupola. The tracks are from Fruilmodel.

The entire model is painted in Xtracolor (spelt correctly David!) Russian Green and Dunkelgelb. If you thought Xtracrylix were good, these are it's big brother.

The model recieved a wash with Raw umber oils and was finished with CMK's excellent Stardust weathering powders.

Everything aside from the artists oils can be found at Hannants, except the Hudson and Allen tow cables, and I have no idea where you can find them as they do not appear to have a website, so check out your local hobby shop.

I really had a good time with this model and hope you enjoy seeing it as much as I enjoyed building

 

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Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2004 by Jay Laverty
Page Created 01 November, 2004
Last Updated 02 November, 2004

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