1/35 Tamiya Jagdpanzer IV by Russ Sharp

Jagdpanzer IV Pak42 L/70

History
August 1944 saw the production of the Jagdpanzer IV Pak42 L/70 by Vomag, of which 930 were built until March 1945. The Pak42 L/70 gun replaced the Pak39 L/48 of the original Jagdpanzer IV, to which eventually completely replacing the earlier version altogether by December 1944.

The engine was a Matbach HL 120trm with 6 gears forward 1 reverse and a top speed of 35km/hr. This vehicle first saw action in the Ardennes with 137 vehicles taking part in the offensive.

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Model
The Tamiya Jagdpanzer IV was built as per the instructions with some extra stowage, tracks and road wheels added. The main colour base was an acrylic dark yellow with a red brown and a dark green drybrushed in a camouflage pattern. A dark wash of black and brown acrylics was applied. Drybrushing with a dust colour to bring up the detail was done with a large soft brush.

Figures
The figures for the Jagdpanzer crew are from Dragon in the winter cold weather uniforms. I painted them in the Fall/Winter camouflage scheme with acrylics.

Diorama
The setting was to be in the early fall with a light first frost, the crew wearing their cold weather uniforms and doing a little replenishing of ammunition and supplies.

The walls were made from leftover building supply gyprock, painted orange, washed in black acrylics to tone the orange down and drybrushed again with orange. The flat faces of the walls were painted a light grey and washed in black to give them the burned effect.

The ground cover is made up of straight real gravel/dirt,2 colours of crushed kids chaulks, wood bits and a light coloured sand ballast for hi-lites in around where the figures would be standing.

The small section of upper floor was made with balsa wood and simply washed with dirty brush cleaning water and a bit of black acrylics. Signs and telephone pole are from Tamiya and a few roots were added to finish.

After Thoughts
A communications headset was scratched and placed on deck in front of the Commander and camo netting was added.

A Tamiya Schwimmwagon was also added with quite a bit of personal gear to give the lived in impression.

Finally I was not happy with the overall scene so decided to change it from Fall to late Fall with a first dusting of snow. This was done by sprinkling white sand ballast from above, letting it lay naturally then adding white glue and water mix to freeze it in place.

Russ Sharp

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