A Zug of StuGs!

Last year I warmed the cockles of your hearts with a tale of random kindness, a Christmas Miracle and a box of German paratroopers. Included with the box of Fallschirmjaeger were five Authenticast StuG III Ausf Fs, because my benefactor figured the FJ would need some armoured support. More tanks are always welcome, especially the iconic StuG, which I`ve always liked. The Ausf F which entered service in 1942, would fill a nice mid-war niche in my collection that was currently unfilled.

The StuGs were in rough shape. Over 50% of the tracks were broken off. All of the barrels were broken off at the mantlet and bent into a J. Gluing the tracks back on was easy. The guns required more thought. I thought about drilling and pinning but there wasn't much room to drill into the barrel themselves. So I just applied a liberal amount of epoxy and used some pieces of foam packing material to hold them at the correct position overnight.

I gave them a black undercoat and then set them aside for a while. A few months back, in between commissions (I do a lot of painting for myself waiting for glue and primer to dry on other people`s miniatures), I put some paint on them with the following result:

Here are some comparison shots with one of my early war Battlefront StuG III Ausf As on the left and a late war Battlefront StuG III Ausf G on the right:

Nice little models which have amply rewarded me for a small modicum of TLC. So now I have quite a pile of StuGs for all my Assault Gun needs in every stage of the war!