Aufklarungspanzerwagen 38(t)

The Aufklarungspanzerwagen 38(t) was a reconnaissance version of the German Panzer 38(t), which itself was based on the Czech LT vz.38 light tank. This model is from Rubicon and is made from the base Hetzer kit plus two add-on packs to convert it into a light recon tank with a 20mm autocannon.

Like all Rubicon kits, it is really well manufactured with lots of detail and clear assembly instructions. I do have one gripe with this conversion kit though. The resin superstructure piece, which sits atop the ABS plastic main hull, to convert it from a Hetzer into the recon version, did not fit correctly. No matter where I placed the superstructure onto the main hull, there was a gap of 1-2mm. In the end I flush-fitted it to bond together at the front of the hull and then used filler putty to fill in the gap at the rear. You cannot see the join after it has been sanded and painted, but it is not the quality that I have come to expect of Rubicon. (I have assembled almost 30 of their kits over the last couple of months and every one of them has been micromillimeter perfect except this one piece.)

I wanted to add this Aufklarungspanzer to my growing collection of German armoured units, so that I have a specific unit to use for reconnaissance in Iron Cross. I've been playing a game of Germans vs Russians with Stuart from Great Escape Games. In the ongoing scenario, his Russians are dug in and hidden from the advancing Germans, so a recon unit will come in really handy to expose the disposition of his troops prior to the rest of my tank units blindly stumbling onto his anti-tank guns. I've also got a small number of motorcycle mounted early war troops (from Crusader, I think?), so will deploy these as a recon platoon too.

Surprisingly, Rubicon do not have a Panzer 38(t) kit, so I recently bought a troop of them from Warlord. I quite enjoyed putting the Warlord kits together, but having now assembled the Rubicon kit, which is ostensibly modelled/based on the same Czech LT vz.38 chassis, I thought that they should be the same size. I thought that whoever mastered the 38(t) model for Warlord got some of the dimensions wrong. The length is the same as the Rubicon kit, and also consistent with them both being 1/56 scale, but the Warlord 38(t) is almost a centimetre narrower that the Rubicon 38(t), so cannot be correct to the 1/56 scale.

However, some members of the wargaming community have pointed out my misunderstanding! 

There are/were in fact two variants of the Aufklarungspanzer, which were based on the 38t. The Rubicon model is based upon the Hetzer chassis, which was itself derived from the chassis of the LT vz.38 chassis, but modified, hence the difference in size. The Hetzer-based version apparently never saw action and was a prototype developed at the end of the war. The second version, which did see action albeit in limited numbers, was built on the original chassis of the 38t and is far more similar to the Warlord models I have got. Rather than the tank turret shown in the photo below, the recon version had a 2cm autocannon and open top turret.

I'm still intending to use the troop of 38(t)s because they still look cool and are a bit different to the usual plethora of Tigers that grace too many wargaming tables. By the time the troop gets close to the same position as the Aufklarungspanzer on the gaming table, I am fully expecting the recon unit to be obscured by a smoke marker i.e. a blazing wreck!