The Das Werk Sturmgeschütz III Ausf.G. 1:16

The Build

As usual, I jumped ahead in the instructions to the building of the tracks. These consist of 93 links per side with two parts per link. There are a few sprue gates to clean up here, but they go together easily with careful application of extra thin cement. A ration of ten links at the start of each session kept repetition boredom at bay.

Construction begins with the fitting out of the lower hull. The front armour, return rollers and some side brackets are attached before the torsion bar suspension is assembled for the six road wheels each side. Next come the lower escape hatch, front drive sprocket and idler wheel mounts, and the road wheel arm guides. If you want working suspension on your model, these guides need a careful clean-up of the awkward sprue gates.

The twelve road wheel arms are made up of three parts each for the eight inner components whilst the forward and rear arms each side also incorporate the shock absorbers. The arms can now be attached to their respective torsion bar mounts.

The suspension does work nicely but I did have two of the mounts break off the torsion bars later in the build after the paint had stiffened the movement. In retrospect, I would have weighted the lower hull to achieve a realistic level suspension position and then glued it in place.

Construction continues with the rear hull plate on which are mounted two towing points along with the dual engine exhausts and deflector plate. The instructions now call for the road wheels, drive sprockets and idler wheels to be mounted along with the tracks. All of these were left off until much later in the build to facilitate painting and also to continue my cunning plan of assembling ten track links per session. The first of the PE grilles can now be superglued into position.

A basic interior is provided in the mid part of the hull. This consists of a bulkhead separating the engine compartment from the crew section, a driveshaft cover and the main gun mount. Around this goes a two-section floor. This I found didn’t fit at all well and, after struggling for ages and thinking about resorting to the dremel, I discovered I had assembled the gun mount back to front…………3/10 could do better!

Having corrected this simple mistake, which anybody could have made, the floor dropped in perfectly. When the casemate is constructed later in the build, there is a basic radio to add but little else in the way of detail unless you want to scratch build more yourself. After placing the casemate into position, I could see that with the nicely detailed gun breech in place, not much else could be seen through the commander’s hatch, so I was happy with what Das Werk has provided here. Of course, all of this except the gun mount can be omitted if you plan on having a figure in the open hatch or on closing the hatches altogether.

On the subject of hatches, the front glacis is next to be fitted and this plate has the two hatches for the driver’s compartment. Again, these can be assembled open or closed but if left open, the view inside is limited to the torsion bars.

Next up is the construction of the casemate which, as already mentioned, has some radio equipment to fit, and the two full length mudguards. All the tools installed on these were left off until the vehicle received its main coat of paint.

The instructions called for the casemate to be cemented to the mudguards before joining to the lower hull. I found it much easier to keep everything aligned by cementing the mudguards to the hull and then the casemate on top. The upper piece of the casemate is left open for the moment until the main gun is installed.

Attention now moves to the engine deck. This has four hatches with the integral cooling louvres to install. Again, these can be installed in the open position but, with no engine provided, I cemented these closed. The two intakes for induction air are positioned either side of the engine deck with their PE grilles superglued on top. The deck can now be united with the lower hull.

The 75mm main gun and its mounting are nicely detailed and are made up of over 50 parts.

As already mentioned, the barrel is a single metal part that requires no clean up at all. The gun mantlet with its recoil guide and the muzzle brake are all installed before the main gun assembly slots into the casemate with no fuss.

The casemate is now closed up with the armoured top which contains the gunners hatch with his range finder, and the commander’s two-piece hatch. This was left in the open position as there is enough detail inside the casemate to allow this if required.

Painting and Weathering…