





The vehicle
“The Sd.Kfz. 7 was a half-track military vehicle used by the German Army, Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS during the Second World War” [1] [2]
“The 8.8 cm Flak 18/36/37/41 is a German 88 mm anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery gun, developed in the 1930s. It was widely used by Nazi Germany throughout World War II and is one of the most recognized German weapons of the conflict. The gun was universally known as the Acht-acht (“eight-eight”) by the Germans and the “eighty-eight” by the Allies. Due to its lethality, especially as a tank killer the eighty-eight was greatly feared by Allied soldiers.” [3]
The kit
Airfix 1/76 kit [3]. It’s true that I have been doing a lot of Airfix kits recently. Mostly it is because I have a large stash of them – having bought many of their new releases over the years – and I must make some room by building some! Also, I am sure that I attempted it many decades ago – it was first produced in 1967, so older than me! But I am equally sure that myself back then made a mess of it, so I am coming back to it now.
Assembly
For its age, the kit is alright. You have to deal with all the usual – ejector pin marks, flash, mould seams. I think you can make it look good enough, within the confines of the scale and without doing a full reconstruction on it, which hardly seems worth it to me. The only part which is truly bad are the tracks. The best I can say for them is that they hold together once you melt them in place. Otherwise, they are nasty – no paint seems to hold to them and they hardly bear scrutiny.
Painting
Following Tamiya primer, I used the paints shown in the image, as well as one or two other acrylics for brush painting.
Weathering
I put some paint chips on the body work using AMMO Drybrush paint “Panzer Grey” (A.MIG-0604), perhaps to show the original paint coming through the desert colour, if indeed that was a thing. After that, I used Winsor & Newton “Raw Umber” oil paint in enamel thinners to give it an overall wash. The entire model was then sprayed with a 10% mix of a beige paint colour in thinners, to give the effect of a dusty look.
References
Leave a comment