Zvezda 'Panther A'

I have a few elderly Peter Pig Panthers, and now that I have a full complement of Pz IV specials and Stugs, I thought it was time to flesh out the numbers of the shiny new 'medium' tank that was supposed to replace the Panzer IV.

I would have got some PSC Panthers, but a trader at Partisan was selling Zvezda Panther As at the knockdown price of £2.50 each, so it was hard to resist.

I got four of them, as they were relatively numerous later in the war. Here they are looking suitably menacing, rolling across the dining table.

These models are at the more complex end of the Zvezda 'snap together'; approach. In fact they are ludicrously complicated, quite why they couldn't mould a single piece upper hull instead of the seven (!) seperate pieces is beyond me. The smoke dischargers are also designed for people with much smaller fingers than mine. 

Smoke dischargers also means that these are not Panther As at all, but Panther Ds, as they also have the distinctive letter box MG slots and early cupolas without vision blocks and AAMG rails. Well whatever, they were fairly numerous until the end of the war despite the distressing propensity of the exhaust system to burst into flames.

This pair are modelled as early Ds with their smoke dischargers, and lightly modified with some missing skirts and the addition of a radio antenna and commander to one of them (I had to cut off the top of the cupola and make a new hatch). I also added a bit of stowage, including an unditching beam which seems to have been a popular feature. The spare tracks on the hull are moulded on.

This pair are modelled on some Panthers of 5th SS Panzer Regiment, with their distinctive plain white turret numbers. They got outline balkan crosses on the hulls which are quite subtle.

You can see the exquisite detail on the engine deck. It is a shame that Zvezda chose the make the hull construction so complex, as I would have far preferred a simpler hull coupled with more complex details like separate spare track links and a separate commanders hatch.

These two are late model Panther Ds, so minus the smoke dischargers. I had to fit the dischargers as there is a huge hole in the turret to take them, then trim them flush. These two also got some stowage and antenna. They have more conventional black turret numbers edged in white, and the black centered balkan crosses stand out a mile away! These two have darker green disruptive camo.

More of a side view, you can see how sleek it looks. This one has a fair amount of stowage, I came across some photos where the crew had actually built a small wooden enclosure on the engine deck and welded a ladder to the side! That must have made traversing the turret interesting.

They were all finished in standard mid war soft edged dunkelgelb/green/brown camo. I painted the tracks and running gear mud coloured all over, and the whole thing was finished with a dark brown ink wash which ran very nicely into the various cracks, and then highlighted with a very light dryrbush of light tan. They came out rather well I think, and look OK alongside the Peter Pig ones, although latter sit fractionally higher and have massively thick gun barrels compared to the slender Zvezda offerings.