German Recce Unit

My project this week has been assembling and painting another Rubicon kit, this time a SdKfz 253, which is one of the options from the SdKfz250 (Alte) kit.

I wanted some reconnaissance vehicles to add to my early war German force, which mostly features Panzer IIIs at the moment. I played an Eastern Front Iron Cross scenario against Stuart a couple of months ago and learnt the hard way that advancing tanks against dug-in and hidden T34s does not end well...a few Aufklarungs units screening ahead of the Panzers should prevent a similar catastrophe whenever our next game is.

Some of the extra stowage came out of my bits box, which has accumulated from the various Rubicon kits in my burgeoning collection. One of the things that I really like about the Rubicon kits is that they come with a wide choice of decals. I think that adding the white decals to the plain grey hull brings a lot more life to the model and, from looking at historical photos, many of the vehicles had a lot of markings on them. Researching vehicles is another part of the hobby that I really enjoy and can easily waste several hours on.

Instead of using the chipping technique, which I have started to go off, I have been experimenting with using weathering powders/pigments. I used three colours on this model from MIG Productions and then applied some pigment fixer from AK Interactive. The reason for falling out of love with chipping is that, when viewing photos from WWII, very few vehicles actually appear to have had any chips or scratches; they were dirty, but not damaged in the way that we modellers tend to apply various techniques (hairspray, salt, chipping medium etc)

What I have been doing instead to give the hulls a weathered appearance, prior to applying dirt, is to use lightly diluted oil paints (using enamel thinners) is small patches. I used dots of white, a very bright blue and a very bright green on this model, which when diluted and worked around with a brush give the "metal" a mottled finish. It is difficult to see in these photos, but I think it looks effective.

This model needs a quick blast of Testor's Dullcote to take the shine off it and then it's ready for the gaming table. 

The next Aufklarungs models I am going to work on is a pair of SdKfz 222s, which are lightly armed with a 2cm autocannon; the 253 above is unarmed so only good for uncovering hidden units in Iron Cross whereas the 222s can at least engage infantry for a short time to give the Panzers a bit of time to move forward.