I had an eye to late 1942/early 1943 battles and thought a grey Pz IV (lang) would be in order to go with my shiny new grey Pz IIIJ/L.
And what could be better than the Zvezda Pz IV F2? Even though it is badged as a G, it clearly has the globular muzzle brake, so is a 75L43, not a 75L48. Just like the Airfix kit. I picked this one up from the 'plastic kit man' at Partisan earlier this his year for a very reasonable four quid.
Sadly I noted that at The Other Partisan his pile of Zvezda stuff was almost completely depleted. I suppose everything comes to an end eventually.
Regular readers will recall I already have one of these serving with the Afrika Korps. It is an easy model to assemble, and like so many Zvezda kits, still so much nicer than many 3D prints. One feature it does have is an awful lot of clutter on the hull and quite large vision ports on the turret - all of which get in the way of putting decals on. That box just behind the drivers left hand vision port is particularly annoying as on most models there is room for a balkan cross there.
As you can see I ended up putting the turret numbers and one balkan cross on the back. I added a couple of extra bits of stowage, a PSC Jerrycan and a spare wheel (maybe from a PSc Stug?). There is quite a lot going on in terms hull furniture already, which is perfect when trying to paint a monochrome vehicle as there is lots of raised detail to keep it interesting.
It just sits really well as a model and looks like a Pz IV should do. This one got the same treatment as the Pz III, a base coat of Humbrol Sea Grey then a thin wash of VJ Panzer Grey. Mud all over the running gear and then a light drybrush of VJ Iraqi Sand. Unusually I painted all the tyres on the wheels, the final drybrush covered up where I'd splashed black paint onto the wheel centres, but surprisingly they look a lot better for being painted. I also picked out some of the tools with a pinwash and highlighted them in metal and/or wood.
Intothe grey tank box it goes, and at some point I'll figure out a game to use it in!
Nice model!
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