Zvezda Pz 38(t)

I felt the need of a spot more early war German armour, partly with an eye to Arras, partly with an eye to Barbarossa. I just could not resist these beautiful Zvezda Pz 38s, after all, who doesn't love a Pz 38, with all those lovely rivets. At £2.50 each (in a special deal) these guys were hard to beat.

I was only going to get three, but then I thought, what the hell, and got six. Coupled with my Pz IIs, Pz IV D/Es and PzBehfl III, that is enough for a whole battalion.

More of a close up of its angular loveliness. As with all the Zvezda kits this snapped together in a few minutes, the only slightly odd bits are the machineguns, but they look fine from a distance.

Engine deck, turret rear etc. The rivets stand out quite nicely here.

For this one I bodged up a commander from a PSC kit and just made up a hatch cover from plasticard. The hatch aperture is pretty small in real life, so I just cut the figure off flat and stuck it down and you can;t see that there isn't an actual hole in the turret.

I just did these in plain Panzergrau over a black, so good for 1939 to early 1943. I used Vallejo Panzer Grey, but it is ludicrously dark so I ended up lightening it with some added white. The turret decals are Battlefront, and otherwise I just heavily drybrushed the tracks and running gear in mud and finished the whole thing off with a very light overall drybrush of Vallejo Iraqi Sand.

These are lovely models and I'd recommend them to anyone. In fact I liked the some much, I then went and bought a load of Zvezda Pz IIs and Pz IVs to replace my elderly metal Peter Pig ones. Oh dear, that is going to be a slippery slope...