Lightly bodged 15mm Pz IV E

 Eagle eyed readers will have spotted a Pz IVE among my Stage Two DAK Germans. 

And here it is trundling across the desert. The obvious distinguishing feature is the turret bin. The Pz IVE was the first model to come supplied with such a stowage arrangement.

The model is just a lightly hacked around Zvezda Pz IVD. I based the dimensions for the bin on the PSC Pz IVG, and discovered that a spare PSC Stug Mantlet I had was almost exactly the right dimensions when it was  turned around and upside down. It required a certain amount of cutting and filing, and then the bin lid was added from 30 thou plasticard. 

The hardest bit was cutting it down to fit the sloped angle of the turret rear. I didn't get it quite right as it is flat rather than angling down slightly , but it is good enough for wargaming. I also added a pair of spare wheels (also spare PSC bits). They should really have a retaining bar around them, but by now I'd had enough of fiddling around with tiny bits of plasticard and gave up my efforts to build one and just stuck them on.

Beside the standard Pz IVD model, they actually look quite different, even though the hulls are identical. I find the binless IVD turret quite jarring, which was partly why I added some stowage (the rolled tarpaulin and helmet).

From this angle they look more similar, possibly due to the stepped Hull front, although I didn't add an aerial deflector to the Pz IVE.

They are different colours as I did the Pz IVE in Desert Sand (the lighter shade I use for British Light Stone) - captured paint stocks at Benghazi or something - which helps differentiate them.

I'm pleased with how that turned out, and it as nice simple conversion in the end. You don't need loads of Pz IVs for DAK, but at some point I'll do a Pz IVF2 to add some long barrelled fun for 1942, but not yet. I've got a bunch of PSC Pz IVGs, but they are probably better for Tunisia.