Hasegawa 1/32 Junkers Ju 87G Kanonenvogel

By Suresh Nathan

Mission 2530, Rudel's Red Run

Introduction

Hans-Ulrich Rudel (2 July 1916 – 18 December 1982) was a German ground-attack pilot during World War II and a post-war neo-Nazi activist.

The most decorated German pilot of the war and the only recipient of the Knight's Cross with Golden Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds, Rudel was credited with the destruction of 519 tanks, one battleship, one cruiser, 70 landing craft and 150 artillery emplacements. He claimed nine aerial victories and the destruction of more than 800 vehicles. He flew 2,530 ground-attack missions exclusively on the Eastern Front, usually flying the Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bomber.

On 8 February 1945, Rudel was badly wounded in the right foot, and landed inside German lines as his radio operator shouted flight instructions. Rudel's leg was amputated below the knee. He returned to flying on 25 March 1945. He claimed 26 more tanks destroyed by the end of the war. On 19 April 1945, the day before Hitler's final birthday, Rudel met with Hitler in the Führerbunker at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin. On 8 May 1945, Rudel fled westward from an airfield near Prague, landing in US controlled territory, and turned himself in.

Planning

I envision these sorts of dioramas like boxtop art with the subjects doing what they do. Typical Stukas don’t go below 1500 feet but at 1/32 that’s 46 feet off the base. So artistic license was in order. The Halftrack is 1/35 but even with this forced perspective, accuracy would be impractical. Plausibly I put the halftrack on a hillside and the Stuka coming off a mountain peak. In addition, this allowed we to expand the real-estate around the tiny base that could barely hold the halftrack. As the story evolved it became necessary to balance the explosion with the tree and fill in the front with a feature which was the river and waterfall. This naturally required someone to jump into the river and a casualty from the strafe. Et voila!

Hasegawa 08075 1/32 Ju87G Kanonenvogel

The kit was from the completely new tool Hasegawa from 2005. A few versions have appeared since then and has the correct profile. Fine surface detail and panel lines are as to be expected from Hasegawa. Comprehensive markings and even paper masks for the camouflage is provided. They even provided decals for the canopy ribbings which I typically do not use. In any case they were very fragile and tended to break. I coated these with layer of future to make it a little tougher. I tend to want to handpaint larger markings so I only used the technical stencils with the rest being masked off. I reinforced the antenna with a brass core because of bad previous experiences – where the canopy cracks or the antenna deforms under tension from the antenna wire.

The prop nose was a solid piece of aluminium I cut on a lathe to simulate spin. The kit-provided 37mm barrels were badly deformed and I cut my own on a lathe in aluminium. I used self-made vinyl masks for the bigger insignia. I was able to bring out the fine detail by including a drybrush layer on the pre-shade before the actual paint. This gave the model a subtle surface texture which I like, but it may not be to everyone’s taste.

Tamiya 1/35 ZSU M17

The quad gun motor carriage was an American design based on the M5 halftrack. The M17 was heavier with a bigger engine, thicker armour and longer range. Nevertheless apart from minor differences to the rear stowage and markings they were otherwise identical to the better known M16. The M17 was provide as part of the lend lease program and was highly successful into its ground role. The kit is old from 1976 but still awesome to build. The undercarriage was replaced with aftermarket parts from One Scale Projects. I picked these up from a show in Phillipines and they were very well made but unfortunately obscured by the mud. I added battle damage to the bonnet and modelled flames from stretched clear sprue. There is a full engine under the hood cobbled together from spares but it can barely be seen. The windscreen has bullet holes. I heat formed the edges of the hood covers to show blast damage.

Base

The base is a solid pre-fabricated base from High Planes Models. The mountain range is carved from Styrofoam with sand for texture. Once I had a rough shape, I put all the main players on the base. By putting it on an incline I could create more space around and otherwise narrow base that could barely hold the M17. I balanced it off with a tree on one end which was across for the explosion on the other. This consisted of a hanger wire drilled into the centre of the base and exiting in the corner of the base. Remaining wires formed the remaining spikes of the explosions and epoxied to the main structural spike. The main spike fits into an aluminium spindle which I cut on a lathe and epoxied onto the underside at a realistic angle. The base was then covered in acrylic paste and groundwork. As an added idea I decided to show the driver jumping into a river below and this was a piece of clear plastic with clear acrylic gel over it. The whole composition was finished off with a waterfall on the right.

Action!

Part of my plan was to maximise my action shots in the scene. Accordingly, I modelled an explosion with flames on the hood of the halftrack with a bullet hole in the windscreen leading to the projectile puncture into the radiator melted with a pyrogravure. The bullet trails are small calibre steel wires glued in place and painted. The fuselage is struck with a sparking round with trailing debris. I tried that with wires at first but it was kitsch and so I decided on an acrylic paste spark with debris flying out which was much more subtle. The flowing water is acrylic modelling gel on cellophane. The spinning propeller is a clear disc with decals of prop wash that I print myself.

Painting and markings

The Stuka paint job calls for light blue undersurfaces, with blackgreen and darkgreen upper surface camouflage. The models were base painted in Humbrol RLMair enamels, varnished with Future-Tamiya Flat acrylic, weathered with turpenoids and chipped sparingly. I used oil washes for weathering and drop filters for colour variation. The worn silver was a combination of sponge dabbing, silver pencil and undercoat with black and brush painting silver. All major markings were cut from stencils and airbrushed. Only the smaller stencils were decals. Weathering was done sparingly but with attention to unifying the aircraft to the base. I did this with pastels mainly.

The M17 was painted overall in olive drab. The markings were all hand-painted except for the American serial numbers. This was apparently authentic. American made vehicles like this would have the white stars painted in red and circles painted out in Soviet Green. Smaller markings like serials would be left alone.

Figures

The pilot figure from Hasegawa is reasonably moulded. It had a significant seam-line that still shows after clean up but in a closed cockpit can't really be seen. They're both smiling which is unnerving but I think that they’re smiling in their break for freedom. The quad-gunner is the American in the kit re-sculpted into the soviet gunner and the two soviet soldiers are Tamiya German soldiers re-sculpted into soviets. All were painted in acrylic.

Conclusion

There were many desperate acts of escape in the closing chapters of the third Reich. This must be one of the stranger of these accounts. It’s quite amazing that Rudel made it to old age despite his many close calls.