75th Anniversary of Battle of Monte Cassino and Northern Italy (Army Build)

Following the surrender of Italy, the Germans were left on their own to fight the Allies, effectively occupying Italy whilst fighting a defensive war. To supplement their forces, they took whatever equipment they could find. In the case of the 26th PanzerRegiment, this included a number of Semovente assault guns purloined from the Italian Ariete Division. They were designated StuG M42 and M43.

The Germans found these tanks to be quite effective against the Allied armour and they served within 10th Kompanie alongside a number of Flammpanzer III. During the Italian campaign, these assault guns fought mainly around the Anzio beach head however a single Semovente 90/53 tank hunter served in the battles around Orsogna before disappearing from the records.

It would be fun to have a few of these to mess around with but I’d like to put them in some Italian cammo patterns to give them a different look. So I found the below picture of a Semovente that I will try and replicate

Once again, the kits are resin and metal – not my favourite. So I’ve used green stuff to help join the metal to resin (with super glue) as this adds to the surface contact area.

I’ve then given the models a prime and base coat of dunklegelb.

To try to get the green patches, I’m going to use blue tack to mask off some areas and then use the airbrush to spray over a mid green.

So not quite the same as the picture I found but reasonably close for 15mm. Getting more patches and closer together would have been very tricky. Not sure the green is light enough but again, reasonably close and I will be weathering it up anyway.

I applied some German transfers and then gave everything a painted on army painter dip. Once this dries, I can look at the weathering.