Warlord Games 1/56 Scale StuG III G Review

                            Forget your Tigers and Panthers, the Sturmgeschütz III was the most common German armoured vehicle of WW2, and also accounted for more vehicle kills than any other vehicle. 

Introduced in 1940 with a short barreled 75mm gun, it was originally intended to support the infantry in attacking positions, it evolved to be a deadly tank destroyer. By 1944 the StuG was actually filling up the numbers in Panzer regiments to make up the shortfall in tank production. From 1943 a dedicated fire support variant with a 105mm howitzer was also produced, and this was designated the StuH 42.

For WW2 gaming every German player wants at least one of these sexy little vehicles ( This is my 6th painted one so far...) and to mark the importance of the vehicle Warlord and Italeri have produced this rather nice little model. In this article I'll talk about the model, and how I painted it. Tomorrow I'll look at the Resin models of the StuG that are available, Saturday I'll Review Rubicons new StuG, and Sunday I'll do a comparative review to show how they all look together. Finally on Monday I will look at some of the kits of other variants of the StuG, as all those reviewed so far are on the Ausf G series, so I shall look at some StuG IV's and Warlords resin Ausf D kit.

Warlords StuG III is currently up for pre-order and I was able to get my hands on a pre-release version of the kit. The model comes on 2 sprues and is very crisply molded in dark grey plastic. The model comes with optional parts to make either a StuG III Ausf G with 75mm gun, a StuH 42 with 105mm Howitzer,optional schurzen, optional position crew and cooling hatches on the engine deck, as well as many separate tools, and optional smoke launchers, Oh, and a commander figure! Also included is a decal sheet with numbers and a few divisional crests.

Detail is superb throughout, particularly note worthy is the fine anti slipping texture on the mud guards, the Schurzen and supports is commendably fine, and I really liked the detail on the wheels and tracks. The tools have far more detail and relief than other vehicle kits in this scale, and the weapon and launcher barrels are pre-drilled.



 The kit is simple to build, with no real trouble spots, although there are a lot of fine parts that require tweezers. Take your time and follow the instructions, and you will have a beautiful model. My sample came before the instructions were ready so it too a bit longer to build, but I managed to get the kit together in around an hour and a half. One nice thing is you can leave the gun barrels loose as they are cleverly designed to click into place. 

The only slight negative is that the Schurzen skirts are a little delicate straight from the box but with a bit sprue spacing beneath the tracks and plates would give a lot of strength and be invisible. I can't recommend enough the importance of using a proper plastic glue though for all these types of models. EMA plastic weld is my favourite, as it is immensely strong, but also gives you a bit of time to work with the parts before they are fully set. 

I wanted to model a vehicle produced between February and March 1943 so added the smoke launchers, but to tie the model into my very late war forces I added Schurzen plates that came from a few different sources, and also gave the StuG a gun barrel still in it's priming paint. I decided not to use the transfers, and instead opted to paint the numbers on by hand to give a hastily applied feel. On my model the 75mm barrel is grey, whilst the 105mm is in red brown primer to suggest hasty replacements.
 







To paint the model I started off with a grey primer, then airbrushed black paint into all the recesses, white paint onto all the high points, and then sprayed Vallejo middlestone over the entire vehicle, before adding a camouflage pattern of reflective green.

 
The model was then painted with some gloss varnish, before I used a wash of artists oils to accentuate the detail by painting it into the panel lines. I added chipping using a bit of packaging foam, and then used a fine brush to pick out the raised areas and edges of chipping with some Middlestone mixed with white. Mud was done using games work shop Agrellan Earth.
A quick blast of matt varnish and the StuG was done. 

Colour	Vallejo Paint	Games Workshop colour
Dunkel Gelb (Sand)	882 Middlestone	Ushabti Bone
Dunkel Grun (Green)	890 Reflective Green	Straken Green

In conclusion, this is an incredible model, very well detailed, with a good fit and some nice options.  I thoroughly recommend it.  

Warlords StuG is available here http://www.warlordgames.com/ and costs £20.

Reviews for other StuGs can be found at the links below
Blitzkrieg
Die Waffenkammer
Rubicon


You can see more of my work, and contact me here at Volley Fire Painting Services. Check back tomorrow as I will be looking at Die Waffenkammers StuG III G, and also Blitzkriegs StuG 42!