1:35 Jagpanzer IV L/70

Hatches and vision ports break the surface up

On an armored superstructure with no rotating turret every opening matters. The commander has a circular hatch above him, the driver his own, periscopes sit on the roof along with the opening for the gun sight periscope, and to that are added the covers of the ventilation ducts and the hatch above the breech. A modeler needs to set them apart, because a cast hatch cover has a different sheen from the armor around it and periscope glass is the only place on the whole machine where there should be a smooth dark area with a green or bluish cast.

Where masking really helps

Vision ports and periscope heads are small rectangles whose width in this scale is counted in tenths of a millimeter. To spray them crisply means having a die-cut screen ready, because a stroke by hand rounds the corners and the area loses the most valuable thing, that is the impression of glass set into metal. For these goods the manufacturer states a pair of insignia sheets and, with them, wheel discs, so the set does the main work on the geometric shapes. The rest is a matter of patience and a steady hand when the stencil is lifted.

Zimmerit and its trace

Machines built up to the autumn of 1944 carried a paste against magnetic mines on their vertical surfaces, applied in grooves or in a coarse pattern. Around the hatches and vision ports the workers left it out, so a smooth strip remained there, and it is precisely that detail which gives away whether the builder really studied the subject. The later examples no longer have Zimmerit, because its use was abandoned in September 1944. Anyone choosing a subject from a photograph should therefore start with the vertical walls of the superstructure, not with the insignia or the numbers.