StuG III Ausf. G tracks

Panzer III/IV type 6B w/cleats

I ordered two identical sets of tracks, even though I considered getting the Winterketten for one of the targets. There'd be time for those later on, now I simply didn't feel it.

Track assembly

Based on my eyeballed measures I decided that about 28cm per side was a good first goal for the track lenght, and then continue from that a link or a couple at a time until reaching the proper lenght. Because of this I did not glue the wheelsets into the StuG, as that made playing with the tracks so much easier. The guesstimated 28cm was three roadwheelfuls too short, as the photo showed, so I assembled more until I did get the ends joined. The actual lenght was ~33cm which gave me some looseness for a bit of sag.

With the tracks built to a good length and repeatedly dry-fitted, A/B pins correctly aligned and the first-buit track marked on the right (the left side when facing forward) side, I could paint them. In addition to the driving tracks I built two short bits of track armour to be hanged on the back wall of the casemate.

Track painting

To keep the tracks somehow in control while painting them I simply laid a decent length of painter's tape with the glue side up, and taped that from the ends onto the instructions. It was going to hold the tracks nicely enough for some airbrushing.

I started, somewhat obviously, with thin layers of Vallejo's black primer. While working on them I took a number of WIP photos but maybe one here was going to be sufficient: 

Over the black I airbrushed some black grey (VMA 71056 Black Grey) to act as the bare steel, in somewhat nebulous pattern. In my mind that gave these tracks a bit of a surface texture.

This time I really had to remember that also the closing pins needed to be painted so they wouldn't stand out in their greyness from the finished model. I kept repeating this to myself constantly, because I knew my weaknesses or at least a couple of them.

Dirt foundation

Weathering the tracks got started with a really thinned down brown (VMC 70826 German Camo Medium Brown) to get some kind of a long-lived earth and dirtiness over the steel tracks. As a colour I believed Chocolate Brown would've worked even better but I also thought this sort of a brown was going to work nicely as well. Later on I could and would add darker brown for fresh, wet mud/earth.

I wasn't going to go far with the weathering while the tracks were laid open, because weathering needed to be done when the build was done and the aforementioned last pins were also painted and not shining like a kilo of radium in the night. These two track armour pieces didn't of course take the same kind of weathering that the running tracks did, but I started the same way anyway.

Gunmetal for the polished inner parts

I started by thinning down gunmetal (VMA 71072 Gunmetal) mostly because I knew my paint to be a few years old, and also the thinner paint wasn't going to be a bad idea. Those guiding teeth were a handy detail to start with, so I didn't test anything on the most visible details.

After the teeth were done I checked with a road wheel what part of the inner track was going to be ground clean while driving. Just about the full flat surface, just as one could've expected. 

With that checked I painted the metal band with the thinned-down paint, applying a cautious layer. Of course I hadn't really seen a running tank close by in almost 25 years and even then I didn't pay attention to those parts, so the realism or believability of this approach was based on assumptions. I thought this'd look better than the pure steel bands I painted some years ago on the German-captured IS-2.

Earthy tones

After that was done I closed up the tracks and painted the pins with black grey right away. Then I drybrushed the outer and side edges and that was simple enough with the loops. Before I was going to install the tracks on the assault gun, I painted a layer of heavily thinned down dirty brown (VMA 71133 Dirt).

Track attachment

Installing the tracks was pretty simple this time, thanks to me not gluing the return rollers or any others yet. My track had more lenght than I thought it did, these photos showed all the looseness hanging below the road wheels due to the installation order. I left the wheels and their glue to flash, I didn't want to accidentally plop anything out while readjusting the tracks.

 

The next evening I glued the road wheels onto the tracks to secure the sag in the correct part, so it hung from the return rollers. If something started bothering me, I could still readjust later.

This was enough of track play for the time being. Making them messier was going to happen when the rest of the vehicle was getting weathered.