Panzergrau Zvezda Pz IIIj

 Who doesn't love a grey Panzer III? I already have a bunch of grey Peter Pig Pz IIIG/H which have seen extensive service on various fronts, but they are all 50L42 versions. It occurred to me that for actions from mid 1942 onwards (2nd Kharkov? Stalingrad?) it might be handy to have a 50L60 variant too.

And here it is in its grey wonderfulness. Zvezda don't actually make a Pz IIIj, this is their Flammpanzer III kit with the gun sanded down lightly. It is such an exquisite model though, that I already have three of them. 

This one is pretty easy to assemble, but still has several parts. They all go together cleanly and although it is designed to be push fit, I applied glue in sensible places. There is a moderate amount of hull furniture on it already, so I just added an ammo box on the rear deck and a commander (metal Battlefront figure I think - it is a pretty crude casting, typical of early BF). I didn't attempt to model the open hatch covers as they'd just get knocked off.

The box on the rear deck is a PSC one from the Russian 76mm gun with the lid cut off and turned upside down. The spare wheel is moulded on already. Sorry, this photo is a bit blurry. It is supposed to show all the nice stuff moulded onto the model.

This side view demonstrates what a dogs dinner this kit is. The hull is from a Pz IIIe (you can clearly see the lower side escape hatches), and it also has the early pattern drive wheels and no spaced armour on the hull front. The new turret is just plonked on the wrong hull. Fortunately the mantlet spaced armour is very distinctive and distracts from the other wrongness. The gun needed sanding as the 50L60 gun tapoers whereas the flamethrower is just a straight tube.

Panzergrau is a slippery shade, and it can often be far too dark. It fades rapidly, and is often depicted as having a bluish tinge (that varied by paint batch). For this I base coated it in Humbrol Sea Grey, which is a mid blue grey. Then it got a thin wash of Vallejo Panzer Grey, which is so dark it is almost black. The wash stained the Sea Grey nicely and also provided some shading.

Then it just got a good slathering of 'mud' all over the running gear and lower hull (which always looks good on grey or green vehicles) and a light overall drybrush of VJ Iraqi Sand to pick out the highlights and lighten it up a bit. The decals are all Battlefront, I couldn't be bothered to attempt a three digit turret number and just went with two.