Sturmpanzer IV

This is the early Tamiya kit. Builds simple enough. You know I just cant do it out of the box. Found some great reference photos on line. There were several versions. I debated wheather to add the machine gun ball or even zimmerit.

At first I thought this vehicle was only used in Russia then found it in the streets of Italy. So you will see in the stowage a crate of wine bottles freshly corked.

As usual for me, I used Model Master Enamels to custom blend my color scheme through a Badger 150 airbrush. I applied several coats of the light tan color, then freehand airbrushed in the dark green. From there I dullcoated and proceeded to weather and stain with oil paints.

I preped the pinewood base with a coat of home supply spray paint so the wood did not absorb moisture from the sculpy / woodlands scenics mixture. I folded in tube artists acrylic dark brown paste, then folded in some dry foliage. I tighten the tank into the wet mud mixture with fine wire pulled through the base and twisted tight underneath.

Using thin strips of black electrical tape, I hung various crew items such as a sub machine gun with ammo pouch as well as canteens and dry stowage containers and bedrools.



Vince Barrale  7-10-11

M60: US Marines vs. IDF

In the past few years I have built two vesions of the M60 Tank. The US Marines version which was a Tamiya kit and the Blazer IDF version which was Italeri.

The first is the Tamiya, relatively out of the box with added sowage. I believe this scheme was from the early Desert Storm operation in Iraq.

The second is the Israeli modification of what I believe is the same tank but with different reactive armor. Other differences are in the barrel and the unique bussle rack which I had to scratchbuild. That was a lot of fun working from the museum photos I found. Other israeli modifications include the variety of machine guns on the hatches and mounted to the main gun mantlet, Grenade and smoke launchers on both sides of the main gun.

The Bussle rack was bulit with evergreen strips, rod and stretched sprue for the wrap around cables. More stowage was added including Israeli Food ration cartons.