Here’s another model in the series of oddlings and conversions.
I started out with this series after being inspired by old photographs of captured and converted vehicles.
It’s the Panzer 2 with 5cm Pak 38 in an open turret.
After starting to build this model, I read the text about the history of this vehicle again, thoroughly.
And saw that this was not a conversion, but an, albeit short lived, production model.
Being described in the text below.
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This is an interesting vehicle. This time, it was no stopgap field conversion, this is the "real deal".
In July 1940, the German army ordered a new light tank destroyer developed on the chassis of Panzer II Ausf. G,
armed with a 50mm gun, mounted in an open turret. Two prototypes were supposedly built in September 1941
and transferred for testing to the unit designated 3.Kp./Pz.Jg.Abt. (Sfl.)559. They fought on the eastern front
and one vehicle is listed as operational on 20.8.1942. After that their traces disappear.
After abandoning of the Ausf.G production, the Waffen ambt had the idea to use the chassis for a self propelled gun.
And in July 1940 the first 5cm pak 38 anti tank gun was installed. This vehicle was able to turn the gun 360°.
But after first contacts with soviet T-34 tank in 1941 the 5cm pak turned out to be useless. So the project was cancelled.
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Never the less, this is in my opinion an oddling in the sense that only few were build and the chassis
is a very rare one too because for the Panzer 2 they switched to a new chassis and suspension system.
This is the image that got me started:
Actually all I could find were 5 images of this vehicle.
Here are the other 4:
And an artist drawing of it on http://fhsw-europe.wikia.com
On Missing Linx.com however, I found this photo of a page from a book that said that there had been no production
of this vehicle at all….??
Any who, an oddling one way or the other.
The chassis was derived from the Panzer 2 ‘Luchs’ Ausf. G. see picture below:
I looked for an Ausf. G on ebay. But couldn’t find one.
What I did find was an Ausf. J from ARK Models.
I thought that the gap in the fenders and the round manhole were the only differences with the G model.
Turns out there are a lot more differences. So I had to do a lot of modding to make the J model look like a G model.
I bought a 5cm Pak 38 from Dragon:
I started building the gun:
Than I started building the panzer.
And filled the hole in the fenders:
Then I realised that the hull of the G model was wider than of the J model.
So I extended it sideways with some scratch modeling.
And from what I could more or less figure out from the old images I added boxes here and there:
I saw that the turret was bigger than the G model turret.
So I extended that too.
And I realized that the gun that I had already put together had to be stripped of most parts
because it wasn’t a gun conversion but merely a barrel in a turret assembly.
That’s it for now, folks!
Next I’ll be making a turret cover, that I see in the old picture, from miliput.
cheers
