Sunday, January 22, 2017

'East' from ClintB: Ferdinand

Well not what I was expecting to paint at all. I was supposed to be painting some WW1 German East Africa troops. Clearly this has not happened. As such I have had to reach into my reserve projects bin and paint something different

Ferdinand.

Was the secret weapon for the Battle of Kursk. However it was not fully thought out and there were problems.

In September 1943, all surviving Ferdinands were recalled to be modified based on battle experience gained in the Battle of Kursk. During October and November 1943, 48 of the 50 surviving vehicles were modified by addition of a ball-mounted MG 34 in the hull front for anti-infantry ability, a commander's cupola (modified from the standard StuG III cupola) for improved vision, and the application of Zimmerit paste. The original vehicles had no athing to stop infantry at all...well maybe some bad language from the crew.The frontal armor was thickened and the tracks widened, increasing the weight from 65 to 70 t. The improved vehicles were called Elefant; this became the official name by Hitler's orders of May 1, 1944. Possibly as a stopgap before the Elefant modifications were available for the original Ferdinand vehicles, the rarely seen Krummlauf curved barrel upgrade for the Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifle was allegedly meant to allow crews of Ferdinands to defend their vehicle without exposing themselves.Three Bergepanzer Tiger or Bergetiger armoured recovery vehicles were built in Autumn 1943 from Tiger prototypes, and one battle-damaged Ferdinand not suitable for the Elefant modification was converted into a Rammpanzer Tiger or Rammtiger, an experimental breakthrough vehicle.

But this has no MG so is a Ferdinand. Only 98 were ever built and 2 were captured and thus survived the war. One by the Russians at Kursk (Battle of) currently in the Moscow Tank Museum. The other one (an elephant) was captured by the Americans at Anzio in Italy. This one is currently at the Bovington Tank museum on Loan .

The model is a Zvesda 1/100th scale plastic Kit and I bought it for the sum of £2.75 while I d not see myself putting this beast on the table very often It will help bolster my German PBI force which is mostly Infantry based. So one German heavy very rarely is a far more realistic force than many WW2 Players strive for.

28 comments:

  1. One of Dr Porsche's great inventions - but no anti-personnel capability! Great work on the camo, Clint, excellent job!

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    1. Thanks Evan. Originally the Ferdinand had NO anti personnel capability. But due to a poor battle performance Zimmermit and a MG were fitted.

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    1. Thanks Tamsin. I do find Camo hard to paint.

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  3. Big tank with a big gun. Great stuff. cheers

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    1. Thank you Kiwi. As tanks go it was not a good design too big too heavy and as mentioned no close in protection.

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  4. An extremely well executed late war camoscheme there Clint!

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    1. Thank you Sander. As mentioned above I do struggle painting Camo.

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  5. It may well not be what you expected but it still looks pretty cool! Nice camo too!

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    1. Thank you Ray, my East African troops have now arrived, picked them up yesterday at the club!.

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    1. Thank you Barks. Not one of my best or one of my favourite vehicles but as a stand in for the bonus round I cannot complain.

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    1. Thank you Dave, I just did not have any camels to paint so painted an elephant instead!

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    1. Thank you Michael. Not what I planned for this bonus round but useful to me none the less.

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    1. Thank you Chris. Only fearsome to tanks it has NO defence against infantry!

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  10. Big and scary. Quite funny in light of it to read about Warlord Games releasing a Maus model, which is even crazy bigger than this monster.

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    1. Thank you Michael It is only a mater of time before Warlord go all GW and try to release the Ratte (A German tank ONLY in the planning, but never got of the paper!)

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  11. Great work on this Beast of Kursk, Clint! Great historical background as well.

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    1. Thanks Curt I was supposed to be painting German East Africa figures for this bonus round.... But I did consider a helicopter for my Vietnam stuff!

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  12. She is a pretty beastie, Clint!
    I think you did an outstanding job on the camouflage!
    No get the paint monkey charging on those new troops you got! ;)

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    1. Thanks David. I have some WW1 Cavalry to do first.

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  13. Nice job on this big boy. I was recently reading about this in the Kursk battle.

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  14. Great work, Clint. This is the kind of distraction from WW1 Africa we all enjoy!

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  15. Nice work and interesting background.

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