A New German Halftrack Trundles Out Of Plastic Soldier Company
September 3, 2015 by brennon
Plastic Soldier Company bolster the fighting potential of the Germans in World War II with a new Halftrack model, the SdKfz 251/C. See what you think of it complete with crew and stowage...
These vehicles were integral to the German war effort and it wouldn't be surprising to see these popping up in many German armies. The fact that they were decently armoured, had machine guns for mobile fire support, and could also push forwards with troops made them a reliable addition to the army.
Model-wise this kit is a 20mm one in plastic, as you might have guessed from the sprue above! It comes with seven crew and all the stowage options that it would have had back in the day.
One thing I've been interested in when looking at World War II is the extent to which crews would personalise their vehicles. Was it a big thing for them to do?
Let me know in the comments!
"The fact that they were decently armoured, had machine guns for mobile fire support, and could also push forwards with troops made them a reliable addition to the army..."
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nice.
One thing I’ve been interested in when looking at World War II is the extent to which crews would personalise their vehicles. Was it a big thing for them to do? It depends on what you mean by personalise. The Allies and Germans certainly gave vehicles names, and where German tanks etc were delivered from the factory in plain Dunkelgelb, for example, they would be camouflaged in the field from base pastes diluted with fuel. Some divisions within the US army painted vehicles with black camo stripes applied over the base olive drab. As for stowage, that’s probably the main… Read more »
In case of the german tanks it was not really personel. It was more that there were suggestions from the Wehrmacht for patterns and colours. So the crews had to choose a pattern and used the paints they get their hand on. Because of supply shortage it wasn’t possible for every unit to make the same colour scheme with the same colours. although the colours were standardized the reality showed often differences in the way of the colours’ ageing.
Till 1943 Panzergrau was the standard colour after the June 1940 order, though the practice was in place before then for single codour grey. From 43 Dunkelgelb was the base colour and Werkstatte crews or the vehicle crews would mix Rot Braun and Oliv Grun pastes with petrol, later water, to be applied to the vehicle to camouflage to match local conditions. There were no proscribed patterns. From late 44 the use of factory applied 3 tone patterns began, both soft edge and hard edge, though local applied patterns were also present. Each factory had a template pattern, Panthers especially… Read more »