Glad to see you back on iModeler, Louis @lgardner
And as usual, you have found a very interesting topic to work on.
Looking forward to the progress. It will definitely be learningful for all of us.

George R Blair Jr
Hello again George. Thanks for stopping by. I remember you saying that about your Dad. He sounds like he was a great man. Didn't he start out as an enlisted man, and work his way up to being a Colonel as well ? I think I remember something about this from many years ago when we first started talking with each other. If I am wrong please accept my apologies. If he was able to do this, it's an amazing feat in itself.

My Dad always said that you could tell an officer who was promoted in that manner with being enlisted first, apart from the others who were what he called "90 Day Wonders". He also said you could tell the "West Pointer's and Annapolis grads" from the officers who were holding this rank because of their education. I tend to agree with him.

However I was very fortunate to have some great officers in the units I served in. Once I had a West Point grad as our Company Commander. They were not promoted in this fashion like your Dad was, and I have the highest respect for your Dad.

I believe you also said that he served in the Aleutians, if my memory is correct. He was amazing, as that was one of the worst places to be.

I served in a Cavalry unit primarily when I was in the Army. I wanted to be one of the "horse soldiers" after I saw them doing their thing during an event they did for us. But there was a long waiting list and I had decided to leave the Army before this happened. In the Cavalry we had the Stetson Hats and sabers that some of our officers had during dress ceremonies and some parades that we were in. I can only imagine what it must have been like to go from a horse to a tank.

I would like to see that picture someday. I don't have many pictures of my Dad when he served .

That's a cool looking M3. I would like to get that one, but I have one in the stash and I think it's made by Academy. Who knows ? I could still get it and make one in a desert scheme and the other in OD Green. I believe they were also used extensively in the southeast Asia / China Burma India areas too. I think the British used them there against the Japanese as well. So there would be some options for getting a second M3. They really are some cool tanks.

As far as tank preferences, here is my list of likes.

WW2 German Panther yep... the Panther is my all time favorite.
M-1A1 Abrams
M-60 series (you could have guessed this was coming)
WW2 German King Tiger
WW2 German Tiger
WW2 German Jagdpanther's
WW2 German Panzer III
WW2 German Panzer IV
M3 Lee
WW2 German Stug III and IV assault guns... even though they are not a tank technically. They don't have a turret.
M-26 / M46
M-48
M-4 Sherman series
I could go on but you get the idea.

Thanks for stopping by. I sincerely appreciate this.

Here is what is happening with the Panther. It's Zimmerit time !

In order to help with adhesion of the putty, I always either sand the surface where the coating will be applied using a very rough grit sand paper, or I will simply make a bunch of deep scratches in the places were the Zimmerit will be. Here you can see how I scratched up the gun mantlet parts.


The next step was to drill out the holes where the tool mounts go. Then I applied some tape that I cut into small strips. I will remove the tape after the Zimmeritt is on. This way the plastic is still open there for adhesion of the tool racks and will not be covered with the coating once I remove the tape.

The bow gunner MG armor bubble was scratched up next. I believe the Germans call this part a "Kugelblende". They also called the crew member who operated this position the assistant driver / radio operator. It was the American Army that called the position a "Bow gunner" and it's "bow" like on a boat or a ship, and not "bow" like on a Christmas or gift package... 😉 Trust me on that.

I started out small, trying to get in the groove of things because it has been years since I have done this. Here is the Zimmeritt on the sides of the main gun mantlet.

The Main gun armored mantled front and engine access covers were done next.

Here is a close up of the main gun mantlet after the Zimmeritt pattern was applied. I am super excited with how it looks. The more I do, the more excited I get. OK, I know... I need to get out more... get a life.

I moved on to the part that will be glued in place at the rear of the turret. This is also where the loaders hatch is located.

The "kugelblende" was done last... but in this picture I have not done the zimmeritt pattern yet.

I allowed it to dry overnight. Now I can't wait to see how it will look with some paint on it.

I will be busy with doing this to the rest of the hull today since we are projected to have a bunch of rain this afternoon.

Happy 4th of July to all of my fellow Americans !

As usual, comments are encouraged. Thanks for stopping by.

Looks great, Louis (@lgardner). You certainly have a lot more patience than I do. Adding all of the zimmerit would drive me crazy. It will all look very cool under a layer or two of paint.

Pedro L. Rocha (@holzhamer)
Hello my friend. Yes they indeed used 4 different styles on Zimmeritt on the Panther tank. I was not aware of this either until I read about it. I happen to have a very good article all about zimmeritt in an old Fine Scale Modelling magazine. They broke down the different patterns in use by by vehicle type.

There is another variable here: The zimmeritt could have also been applied to vehicles in the field. This would change things to if they did something different.

The pattern used depended on when the tank chassis and turret was manufactured, and also where they were built. The factories all used a different Zimmeritt stamp , rake, or roller to make the patterns we see in the pictures.

Going from memory here, I believe the four manufacturers of the Panther tank were Daimler Benz, MAN, MNH, and lastly Henschel and Sohn.

I too have seen a tactical breakdown similar to the one you mentioned about the Cologne tank battle. The one I saw was very interesting. They stated the Panther tank crew had the Pershing in their sights but did not fire. I believe this was the first time they had ever seen a Pershing tank, because it was a brand new type that had just been introduced to the theater. The Panther Commander and crew were used to seeing a Sherman tank which was taller and not as wide as the Pershing was.

Because of this hesitation by the Panther tank to fire, they ended up losing the engagement. The Pershing driver and bow gunner both saw the Panther tank as they were driving around the corner, and the Panther's main gun barrel was aimed right at them. So the driver accelerated as he turned the corner. A moving target is harder to hit than a stationary one. Then the Pershing gunner fired as soon as he had the Panther in his sights. He fired while on the move, which is something that was not typically done with the older Sherman tank.

I don't know if they had a stabilization system on the Pershing. We had it on the M-60, but I believe it was an add on improvement feature. Believe me, firing from a moving tank without turret stabilization is hard to do. It becomes even harder to do if the terrain is not level and smooth. We would train doing this in the field as a back up in case the system failed. Thankfully I never experienced that happening.

This whole tank encounter is fascinating to me.

I do plan to make a base for this to take pictures of the various completed models, but it will likely be something simple. Maybe a road with mud and rubble / debris on it based on the photos and movie.

Your method of making Zimmeritt sounds interesting. Many years ago I tried doing it using a hot screwdriver and was melting the plastic using the tip. I would not recommend this method to anyone however. There are too many ways things could go bad here.

Thanks for stopping by, and please check out the next installment. It's coming right up.

As stated above, tonight I made some more progress with the Zimmeritt application on the Panther. Here are some pictures. Please follow along as I explain what is going on. Thanks.

I applied a thin coat of Milliput on the rear box after it was scratched up pretty good to help with adhesion of the putty.
I have found out that if you lightly wet the surface of the putty, and also get the Zimmeritt roller wheel or stamp wet at the same time that things go a whole lot faster.

I was having trouble with the Zimmeritt pulling off the plastic when I rolled it or pressed on it with the stamp. Then it would clog the wheel or stamp and I had to clean out the grooves... Not cool !

Remember the engine access plate from a few earlier posts ? I had previously assembled the tow pintle and test fit it before I applied the Zimmeritt on this plate. Once the putty dried overnight, I simply had to drill the ends of each slot. Then I took a razor blade and cut out the Zimmeritt putty that was covering the area where the tow pintle gets glued in position.

Once that was done I permanently glued the tow pintle assembly to the round bolt on engine access plate. It is not ready to glue onto the rear slope yet. But it will be ready to just as soon as I finish up the rest of the Zimmeritt there (and the other box)

OK I couldn't resist doing this...
So I temporarily placed the engine access cover in place. Right now it's only held in place by a friction fit. I think it's really starting to look cool.

On to the sides now. This is what I got done in a few minutes. I wet the surface of the putty and dunked the roller in water. This was the ticket... and it kept the putty from clogging up the wheel and stamp.

Here is a close up of the left rear sponson. This is also a quick way to tell if the tank you are looking at is a G model Panther or an earlier one like the A or D versions.

The later "G" model was a straight piece of metal here on the sponsons. This was easier and also quicker to do. So it allowed for a faster production of the vehicle. They also changed the angle of the side armor when this change was made.

Remember the thin tape strips ? Here is why they were used. After the putty was applied and the Zimmeritt pattern rolled on, I simply lifted the tape and I have the exact location where the side mounted OVM tools go. It also allows me to glue the part directly to the plastic now. I call that a win / win.

Here is the side sponson armor. It looks a bit jagged in one spot. But I had tape applied under here as well. It was done for the same reason as stated before.

I mentioned that I have a round cast hull version of the Sherman that was not quite done yet. It's maybe 90-95 percent ready. I wanted to do a side by side comparison of the two different types.

This is an overhead view. Notice the immediate difference in size. The empty hull of the Panther tank absolutely dwarfs the Sherman.

Here is another picture. I placed the Sherman closer to the camera this time, so now it looks a little bigger than it actually is. To quote Elmer Fudd, "It's twick Photogwafy"... 😉

I do plan to finish this M4A-1 Sherman, and use it as a part of this project. I saw one or possibly two of these in the film of the Cologne Cathedral tank encounter.

OK that's it for tonight boys and girls. I'm calling it a night.

Take care everyone, and as usual, comments are encouraged.

Tanks for stopping by ! (Did you see what I did there ? ) Tanks 🙂 🙂 Yeah right... it's getting late and I need some sleep...

Later Gator ! That's a Florida thing...

Impressive indeed, my friend @lgardner! Your Zimmeritt technique is superb!

John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Hello again John. First off, I thank you. I am striving to get the tanks to look as close as I can to how they looked shortly before the gun fire erupted. I'm also glad to hear that you are learning from this build journal. That is the main reason why I post these journals. It's to help pass on information, knowledge about how to avoid certain problems that a particular model kit may have, the techniques that I use, and so on to help others. The more that we learn from each other , the better we all become.

Thanks again and take care.