Panzer IV turret and the long cannon

The last assemblies

In this happy stage of the build process I just had the turret and the tracks left, of these the turret was more interesting a subject. Anyone who's ever built tanks might agree with me and if they didn't, then they disagreed. For each their own.

Turret f2

Working on the turret's f2 version started with the front edges getting the hatch-holed armour plates. In the ausf G these would've been solid instead.

The raised edges were also to be sanded or filed away as well. I took off the bulk of them with the xacto blade and then sanded the remains down. My result was most likely imperfect but better than if left untouched.

When my other gluings had cured I attached the hatches (closed) onto the turret, I didn't think it made much sense to leave them open if you could only see vast emptiness and a part of the cannon's loading end. There was a silly amount of additional details, in the end I managed to break off only the little photoetch arrowhead, which I presumed to be the "this way forward" sign for the commander to get a bit more of a sense of the tank's alignment when peering out from their periscopes.

While working on the surprisingly flimsy side hatches, I also built the basket that was destined to be installed behind the turret.

75mm KampfwagenKanone 40  L/43

This was where the lottery in the world of choices did: the nice metal barrel was meant for the even larger G-model's L/48 cannon and I couldn't use that in the f2 in good conscience. I'd keep it for later, so the loss was measurable in time only.

Assembling the cannon was pretty straightforward business, even if a bit flimsy in a couple of stages. The tiny bars of the rear part were about to give me (more) grey hairs but in the end it worked out and nothing was going to be seen anyway, so why was I worried in the first place?

All this was to be attached together and sturdily.

Fun detail: the tiny corner hatches could've also been made openable if the assembler hadn't broken one of the two hinges while detaching it from the sprue. The assembler might have been pretty excited about these opportunities, had the tank had something inside to show.

Amazingly the construct was still movable, the cannon's elevation was still changeable. That was great, even if there was no real need to play with it in the end.

Cannon into the turret

The cannon fit into its slot in the turret pretty nicely. The most challenging moment came when all the three connecting surfaces were to get aligned in place at the same time: the turret's shell, the cannon with its shield, and the relatively small-footprinted turret's inner floor / ring part.

Commander's cupola

The final subassembly was the commander's cupola with a cool collection of periscopes. According to the instructions there were two types of periscopes to choose from: open and closed ones. Were these another all or none -options or could they be played with individually? I dangerously assumed that the commander could do what they felt like in the real thing, but for my empty tank I chose to be totally buttoned up with closed 'scopes. Still, I really appreciated the option I had never encountered before.

This cupola didn't have a rail for the MG, nor the MG itself, but I wasn't missing one either.

Being a worrier, I was gently worried about the turret fitting into the hull, and if the turret survived the pressing-turning operation. As usual, I was worried for no reason.

Dry fitting, cont.

As I did so often, the tank's bits had to be dry-fitted and admired from different angles. For the fun of it I piled on the tank some of the extra stuff, like the jerry cans, just to see how it looked.

It looked fine, to me at least. The tracks and a handful of paint layers were left anymore. So almost done, right?

Panzer IV upper hull

A slightly quicker building post

Like you may have noticed the bottom hull was a large assembly and came with a long post, so I thought I'd compensate by writing a tiny bit simpler post of the rest of the hull, and leave the turret as its own episode.

Previously missing armour plates

To keep the driver and the radio operator safe, I glued on the hatches with their little subhatches on. I could almost see how the rain water or slush gathered into these crevices. Brrrr.

Oddly enough the deck didnt' get absolutely anything else on it at this point, so I got to glue it onto the hull. Learning from the past I did this in stages to avoid gaps.

 

Then I glued on the upper front glacis plate that hopefully kept the incoming shells from the lap (or face) of the driver. A couple of hatches for break maintenance got glued on, and these little cupolas were protecting the air vents of the brakes. Funny things you learned while playing with plastic.

Into this gaping hole I needed a vertical armour plate with driver's periscope and the radio operator's scythe. This ball-joint MG was cool and to my great surprise I managed to build it so that it was still movable.

The armour plate went in place nicely and without arguments. Thanks for the cooperation!

Bottom decoration

Even though no one was going to look – apart from some photos – what happened underneath the tank, I did add the bogies' bolts. This was an interesting approach: in the upper edge of a double sprue there were some bolts that were to be sliced off and then glued in place. Had I been smart, I'd taken a fresh blade in use.

These from here...

...onto these attachment points

One at a time

10% complete

50% complete

It was some accurate stuff. A couple of these bolts got lost or broke due to miscutting, but luckily there were a few spares. I think I was left with two unused.

Side pieces

Maybe these were safer to install after the deck was glued on, on the other hand I didn't see a reason to hoard some of the tools over a couple of steps. On the right side of the tank I installed a shovel, a thingy for the antenna to rest on, and the antenna itself. That one could've been installed standing proudly but I felt like pulling it down this time.

On the left side I added some more sticks that also blocked the installation of some of the optional tools like the shelf for spare roadwheels. This was exactly what I would've liked marked much more clearly: what prevented which bit and what could you freely choose while building?

The hull got assembled pretty nicely so my hopes for the turret were pretty high.

Panzer IV lower hull

Model four

My calendar was in such a state that had I shared this project into a post per modeling session like I've done a few times, the content might be split into single sentences at worst. Instead this project is going to be written about in some sort of larger entities, made up on the go.

Following the instructions

Even though this was my fourth Panzer IV frame (an unpainted Hummel, Sturmpanzer IV, Jagdpanzer IV), I was going to be nice and follow the instructions as I didn't really know where to take shortcuts and which made more sense in which stage. That was assuming there were such things where I would strongly deviate from the modelmaker's suggested approach.

Photoetch bits first

The first thing to notice was that the Panzerwanne, straight out of the box, was in a state that in earlier models had taken a good bunch of steps to get to. Now I got to start from these PE hatches to the engine's vents. Somehow the instructions were a bit strange to me here and I could've easily done them a bit wrong. The superglue I had at this point was stupid to use (what it had was not a fine nozzle) so I had to twist some wire to make an applicator that allowed me to use tiny dots of superglue instead of massive globs on, over and around the pieces.

At the same time I also assembled some roadwheels, and two of the jerry cans. Of course I hadn't seen a live jerry can in 23 years so I didn't remember how the lids were to be.

Hatches, tools and return rollers

The heavier work on the lower hull started showing when the front edges of the combat department got hatches, the jack block, a couple of hooks and I wasn't entirely sure what the half-cylinder was for but I guessed it was related to airflow based on the position. Of the barrel cleaner options I just randomly chose one and glued it on.

 

Now the mechanism started turning out: first I installed the things by the drive sprockets and the bogies' stoppers (the little disks along the bottom edge) and built the return rollers that even had maker markings on the rubber parts.

After this I built the bogies with their leaf springs, four per side. Something struck me funny about these and their instructions, but that didn't stick to my memory as I built everything via dry-fitting anyway..

During that same evening I had the time to assemble the roadwheels that each indeed had a more or less readable Continental text, unlike in my earlier builds. I remembered reading ages ago of a higher-pricepoint model that had an extra line on the embossed letters to avoid being sued.

From the wheelsets I moved forward to the rear of the tank and its rear armour plate, where the first piece was the exhaust pipe / barrel and the track tension adjusters. In these first photos the armour plate was upside down.

While attaching it I managed to lose the other L-shaped bit from the middle of the plate. No idea when or when this happened.

Now I encountered the first larger change to be done based on which variant I had chosen. Of course I hadn't thought of it that much so my randomizer song ended on F2 with its ball-shaped muzzle brake. To make that version, I had to violently undo some extra bolt-on features.

Fenders and more tools

Now the instructions told me to start installing various and numerous tools onto the fenders and this made me believe that the lower hull was more or less done. While working on the tools I frog-jumped back and forth to give the freshly glued bits a bit of time to cure while I started on others, the instructions were pretty weird here. What was optional and which were optionals together and which didn't align with each other? It was clear that not everything could go on as instructed.

Because the instructions were odd, I just chose what I fel tlike and then added the front and rear flaps. With those cured I glued the fenders onto the hull. These bits had a pretty neat anti-slipping texture and even the flipsides had textures, even if they were not going to be seen in this build.

My model four felt like it was progressing with leaps and bounds now, but much of that came from the incredibly far-prepared Panzerwanne that I started with. All of this so far had taken a handful of real world hours, much of that time went into cleaning up the pieces.

Early thoughts about the assembly

First of all I had to praise the details here. The bits have been fantastic.

The only complain-like thing I had about the model itself so far was the amount of cleanup required, below's a photo of the deck piece with pretty hefty channel residue. They weren't bothersome where they were located in this case, the worst ones were inside the track tension adjusters where nothing would've fit if these chunks remained. Each of these has gone away without swearing and they've only consumed some time, not nerves.

After the cleanup the pieces have fit together very nicely and there haven't been any problems. All the bits have also found their places well and without guessing or much fiddling. Like I said, great stuff so far.