by Janne Nilsson

The Panzerkampfwagen III represented, along its contemporary Panzerkampfwagen IV a giant leap in the design of tanks. These were the vehicles the new German military leaders such as Guderian wanted to develop the Blitzkrieg tactics, which showed to be so devastatingly succesful during the first war years…

The Panzer III, otherwise known as SdKfz 141, was born in 1937 from a series of prototypes built by Daimler-Benz. The ausf. L model, the subject of my work, was a late version of the vehicle, differing substantiially from the initial pre-war tanks and featuring thicker armour. Ausf. L was built from June to December 1942, 653 tanks in total.

Panzer III series went out of production in August 1943. Nevertheless, its chassis continued being built as the basis for the Sturmgeschütz III assault gun.

Panzer III L in the hot Russian steppe is the subject of my model. The kit and the figures come from Tamiya.

Basically I built the model built straight out-of-the-box, but I couldn’t resist some slight modifications.

To obtain a proper sag of the tracks, i fixed a number of metal pins into the sides of the lower hull. The pins press the tracks down giving the whole assembly a convincing appearance.

I fashioned out a basket from plastic strip and attached it to the top of rear hull plate. The basket was then filled with details from different manufacturers and my scrap box.

I made the net on the engine room cover using just that, a fine vinyl net glued behind a frame from plastic strip.

I mounted a realistic antenna from piano wire. Some rivets from Grandt Line and handles from fine copper wire finished the job with basic kit.

The base was made from Celluclay, and the high grass from lots of linen fibre. Admit that it looks convincing…

This model will be featured in the comming issue of Swedish Allt om Hobby magazine.

This article was originally published in IPMS Stockholm Magazine in October 1998.