Tamiya 1/35 Finnish StuG III Ausf. G

[Opapapa]

Hello everyone!
Here's my first of the year. A Finnish StuG III "Sturmi". Built out of the box and it's far from perfect but I like how it turned out. The towing cables look like crap but next time i know better. It's my first 1/35 scale armor in 20+ years... I would have preferred a Dragon kit, but it would have needed some scratch building to turn it into a Finnish version. And I'm lazy... I enjoyed building this Tamiya kit, except the tracks and the towing cables. The kit was painted (with airbrush and brush, 50/50) with Lifecolor's Finnish tank set and Revell's acrylic paints.

Some history:
In 1943 Finland bought 30 StuG III G's (early production) from Germany. They arrived in Finland in a German dark yellow painting and with German markings. After the modifications made in Finland, most visible differences to a German StuG were the big wooden stowage box in the back, the placing of the spare road wheels and the captured russian DT-light machine gun with a slightly different loaders shield. (Finns chanced the german mg's to the more "familiar" caliber.) And of course the Finnish three color "hard-edged" paint scheme. In 1944 Finland ordered 29 more later production StuGs from Germany but these assault guns didn't see any action.

In Finnish army these assault guns were used for anti-tank purpose only. They were highly effective and they had a huge role in the defensive battles of summer 1944. In just couple of months time around 30 Finnish StuG's destroyed 87 soviet tanks. 8 StuG's were lost in combat.

Thanks for looking!
Olli



















ALAAAAAAAAAARM!!!!!

[Hillbilly]

Very nice Great camo,perfect amount of weathering and it's a Stug....whats not to like

[gustavlekstal]

You done a great work with this stug. I looked for Finnish figures 1937-45. Didn't find anything! Do you if there is any company making 1:35 Finnish figures?

Once again great work!

[WirbelwindModelling]

Nice work mate love the weathering and the camo work. And first one for 20 years!!! Makes it even more brilliant

You done a great work with this stug. I looked for Finnish figures 1937-45. Didn't find anything! Do you if there is any company making 1:35 Finnish figures?

Once again great work!

No company makes 35th scale finns in plastic unfortunately, so you're either going to have to look into resin. Or you can mix Russian and German kits and do a bit of scratchbuilding.

I asked the same question on another forum so check out this post

http://www.network54.com/Forum/47212/me ... +war+Finns

[Opapapa]

Thanks guys!

Gustav,
ToRo Model has some 1/35 resin figures. There's an officer and and an NCO with Finnish weapons. They look like they're Winter War era. Then there's a female volunteer auxiliary organization member (Lotta Svärd). They're all just standing... same thing with Tamiya's figures that comes along with the kits. I know we Finns are not so lively but geez...
I've heard that some Finnish modellers have used Dragon's German figure sets and then resculpted the pockets, belts etc. to look like Finnish uniforms. That means a lot of work. And then you have to decide what to do with the weapons... It's quite hopeless.

Olli

[gustavlekstal]

Thanks guys!

Gustav,
ToRo Model has some 1/35 resin figures. There's an officer and and an NCO with Finnish weapons. They look like they're Winter War era. Then there's a female volunteer auxiliary organization member (Lotta Svärd). They're all just standing... same thing with Tamiya's figures that comes along with the kits. I know we Finns are not so lively but geez...
I've heard that some Finnish modellers have used Dragon's German figure sets and then resculpted the pockets, belts etc. to look like Finnish uniforms. That means a lot of work. And then you have to decide what to do with the weapons... It's quite hopeless.

Olli

Hmm there must be a market for it... I'm thinking of winter dressed soldier with a Molotov cocktail or a massive log to jam into some tank tracks. There were no standing at all for the Finns during the wars I lack the skill for remaking German ones... Dammit!

http://toro-model.home.pl/pliki/35f61e.htm might be to hard to make this one into a sneaky one

[Russ72]

Great work Ollie, I like the subtle weathering. Very nice.

[Nige99]

Nice build and great camo on this Stug. Well done mate. Looks like you still got your skills

[PaulAyrey]

Looks great Olli, love it!

[Opapapa]

Thanks guys!!! Really appreciate it!

[planemaker]

Welcome to the Dark Side, Olli! You have done a great job on that Sturmi!

The weathering is just right and the camo looks awesome.

Your result is just great, buddy! I prefer softly weathered vehicles. The tracks look really nice, did you replace them with metal ones or are they just OOB?

And speaking of weathering on AFV, I have also just made my first attempt on AFV! It was a Tamiya 1/35 Sd.Kfz.124 Wespe. I completly
over weathered it and now it looks like a mudball! It feels strange building AFV as planemaker and you sometimes feel that you are a complete noob when it comes to stuff like filters and fadeing and all these other tecniques on AFV weathering.

I think it's best for me to stick to "clean" AFV.

________
Terveisiä täältä Vaasasta, Sebbe!

[HamilkarBarkas]

Great model you made there, i like the light weathering in particular. I might do that kit soon myself, just need some pe parts for the grills and maybe new tracks. The camo is so cool looking

[Opapapa]

Thanks guys!!!

Your result is just great, buddy! I prefer softly weathered vehicles. The tracks look really nice, did you replace them with metal ones or are they just OOB?

The kit was oob except the Eduard PE-grills (I forgot to mention these in the first message). In fact the tracks were quite awful. Painting came out quite ok but they just don't look right. Next time i will use some aftermarket tracks. (I'll have to build the later version too ) I'm still learning to do weathering with pigments so I took quite easy approach. I looked some reference pictures and noticed that in summer 1944 these StuG's looked more dusty than muddy.

Ja terkkuja takaisin Porista!

Olli

[Opapapa]

Btw. If someone's interested in Finnish StuG's or other armor, here's a good site for reference material.

http://www.andreaslarka.net/assaultguns.html

[Coen]

Good gravy that's a wonderful piece! Really well done.