Tamed Panther: “Cuckoo”

[Jakko]

With the models I want to finish before starting something new mostly done, I think I can safely start a thread about my next model

This will be a Panzerkampfwagen Panther Ausführung G of 6 Guards Tank Brigade — the specific tank better known as Cuckoo. Yes, a British Panther Here's a column of Churchills:



At the very back is an odd tank for a unit equipped with Churchills. Here it is as it came nearer the photographer:



Obviously a Panther Ausf. G with Zimmerit, and clearly not in German colours, with Allied stars and British tankers crewing it.

The history of this tank is pretty interesting. Using captured enemy equipment is not an extraordinary thing in war, but the Allies generally had little need to use German armoured vehicles because they usually had plenty of their own. In early October of 1944, 6 Guards Tank Brigade was in the southeast of the Netherlands, and during the fighting around the village of Overloon (where there is now a large museum), discovered an abandoned Panther that belonged to Abteilung 2107 of Panzerbrigade 107. Because it was in running order, it was incorporated into the brigade staff. Going by photos, it was repainted in (presumably) British SCC 15 olive drab, with large Allied stars on it and the name Cuckoo painted on the turret sides. This name probably refers to it being a vehicle in the wrong nest, so to speak, but also fits with the naming of HQ vehicles in 6 Guards Tank Brigade, which all had bird names.



This photo was taken in the Dutch city of Tilburg (at approximately the marked location on this map, though the street pattern changed drastically since the war), which is not too far from where the tank was found, and nicely shows the name. It also shows a good deal of damage to the side skirt mounting rail. The other side was a bit more intact:



Cuckoo was first deployed in an attack on Geijsteren Castle, near where it was captured:



Apparently, it was valued highly by its new owners because its 75 mm gun proved much more accurate than the 95 mm howitzers of the Churchills that also took part in shelling the castle.

Cuckoo remained in use until the Battle of the Reichswald in February 1945, when the fuel pump failed somewhere east of Kleve, and because no spares were available, the tank had to be abandoned once more. This picture was taken in the town itself:



And here is film shot of the tank, in winter camouflage, which dates it to January of 1945 because it's known the tank was painted this way for Operation Blackcock in that month:

 

[BarleyBop]

The history of this tank is pretty interesting

@Jakko , the king of understatement!
Adds so much to learn a bit, and know the story!
Thank you.

 

[Edbert]

Apparently, it was valued highly by its new owners because its 75 mm gun proved much more accurate than the 95 mm howitzers of the Churchills that also took part in shelling the castle.

Awesome subject matter brother!

There was no need for the 2nd picture, it stood out GLARINGLY in the 1st!

The part I quoted above is a giant 'duh' though, the velocity difference from a (extreme) high velocity 75mm vs a 90mm howitzer is hard to even compare.

I look forward to this build with great interest.

 

[Jakko]

Adds so much to learn a bit, and know the story!

Whenever I build a model of a real vehicle rather than a generic one, I like to place it into context This of course comes quite naturally, because you have to do much more research to get the details of an individual vehicle right.

There was no need for the 2nd picture, it stood out GLARINGLY in the 1st!

A lot of people apparently see the Churchills and don't realise there's an odd one out at the back

The part I quoted above is a giant 'duh' though, the velocity difference from a (extreme) high velocity 75mm vs a 90mm howitzer is hard to even compare.

Also, the German telescopic sights were generally reckoned to be much better than the British and American equivalents, which helped too. Plus the 95 mm howitzer was considered not overly accurate in the first place

 

[Jakko]

To build the model, I bought this Dragon kit:



Cuckoo was an early Ausf. G, so this kit looked like a good choice. The box is well-filled with sprues and stuff:



It's the latest incarnation of this particular kit, and comes with fairly extensive etched brass, a turned aluminium gun barrel, twisted copper wire for tow cables and some 3D-printed parts.

The tank was apparently produced by MNH, which those more knowledgeable about the Panther than I am, can tell by the Zimmerit pattern. Normally, I would just make Zimmerit myself from putty, but because of the details of the pattern are important to building an individual tank, I also bought an ATAK set intended for Dragon kit No. 6268 (mine is 6622, but I highly doubt any major parts are different):



The ATAK set includes a paper-thin resin sheet with Zimmerit "panels" you have to cut out, as well as a bag with some more three-dimensional parts like a gun mantlet and stowage bins with Zimmerit on them.

Also in the photo is an Ultracast British tanker figure who will likely end up in the commander's cupola

The instructions would have you start by fitting the suspension arms, but because there are Zimmerit parts for the lower hull sides, that is what I actually started with:



I attached plastic part A20 (the panel that pushes track pins back in), then cut out the Zimmerit for the hull side. I had to enlarge all three holes in it (for A20 and the two round things poking through) a little, but otherwise this was pretty painless. Another good thing about starting with these, I realised as I was cutting them out, is that if you mess up, it will all be safely hidden behind the wheels later

 

[Jakko]

Dragon is known for instructions that aren't always as clear as they could be, and though I'm usually not overly troubled by that, I do think that in this kit, far too much is shown simply in place with only a part number pointing to it, which makes it very easy to miss the fact that you have to glue parts on at all. For instance, I didn't notice that the sponson floors are separate parts (C48 and C49) that must be glued to the lower hull. Those parts explain why, in my first picture of the kit under construction, the Zimmerit doesn't reach the sponson floor: that's because that isn't the sponson floor. Due to this, I had to cut away a sliver of the Zimmerit on both sides to make room for the floors. Had I noticed them earlier, I would have installed them before fitting the Zimmerit.



But they're on, as are the suspension arms. I cut the torsion bars off those because I don't see the point of working suspension at all (as an aside, the instructions don't even tell you that you could build the suspension as working if you want to …) and those lengths of plastic rod will come in handy some day I glued the Zimmerit to the rear plate before installing that in the lower hull, which proved to be a good choice. It took a lot of dry-fitting and fettling before the Zimmerit went on as it should.

However, something gives me the impression that the upper hull fit exactly as it should, but I can't quite put my finger on it …

 

[Jakko]

The Zimmerit is now also attached to the turret:



That was not as straightforward as it looks. The piece for the back required a lot of dry-fitting and fettling again, because I had glued the back wall into the turret first. With hindsight, it would probably have been easier to glue the Zimmerit to the back wall first, so that I could have trimmed it to match the chamfer on the back wall part once the glue had dried.

On the sides, I first glued the forward section, before the bend in the armour plate, and the rear part only once the glue on that had set. To get the rear section to fit neatly, I had to use a glue clamp, with a steel ruler between the Zimmerit and the clamp to spread the pressure more evenly.

BTW, you can see where there is no glue behind the Zimmerit:



The lighter spot in the middle, near the bend, is where no glue crept behind the resin.

I also built the gun:



That isn't entirely straightforward. The barrel fits into the innards reasonably well, though with a bit of play, but to get the inner parts into the turret requires filing down the hinge blocks A31 and A32 a little, else they're very difficult to get into the turret at all. Also very odd is that there is a locating lug with a flat side on it on the front end of the gun, so that the muzzle brake will only fit one way. Yet the barrel rotates freely in the breech …

The gun shield is still loose, I'll only glue it on later. In the shield is an air bubble at the top edge, but that will be hidden by a rain shield that goes over the gun shield anyway, so I'm not worried about it.

 

[BarleyBop]

Zimmerit

Cool. I doubt I'll ever do zimmerit, interesting to see how got on with it.

 

[Jakko]

If you only build North African things, then Zimmerit will not feature on your models, no It usually doesn't on mine either, but when it has, until now I've always made my own with putty. This ATAK set is certainly less messy and probably faster, but about as fiddly (though in a different way) and certainly a lot more expensive

 

[JUG]

Nice educational thread Jakko as always following along.

 

[Jakko]

I had to take the mudguards off, because Cuckoo's are both bent and dented, which is hard to replicate with the plastic ones.



After I then glued the upper hull to the lower, I turned to the Zimmerit on the glacis. Pictures show that it was damaged towards the top, so I opened the well-known photo of the tank driving down a forest road in Photoshop, so that I could use the perspective crop tool to cut out the glacis and have a "straight-on" view of it. This let me stretch it to the correct dimensions horizontally and vertically, then trace over it in Illustrator. That way, I got a template that can be used to draw the extent of the damage on the ATAK Zimmerit (or on the glacis itself, of course). That template is attached to this message as a PDF file. The ATAK Zimmerit is translucent enough that I could just trace over the template with a pencil:



All that remained was to cut it out, make the edge a bit rougher and put it onto the model to take a photo:



It's not stuck down here yet, as I still had to cut out the opening for the bow machine gun, but once I did that I glued it on, and the rest as well:

 

[Jakko]

The turret is largely done now, except for a few details, and I also completed the engine deck (other than the German antenna):



The muzzle brake is a 3D-printed item that you get with the kit. One in plastic is also included, but with this one you don't have to remove a seam I put a British antenna base (from an Asuka Sherman) on top of the Nahverteidigungswaffe, in such a way that two bolts of the antenna base appear to line up with two bolts in that — and then I cut away the remaining four bolts and pricked little holes in their stead …

At the back, I converted the left stowage box to one with vertical ribs:

 

[BarleyBop]

Nice additions!
Contributing a feeling of real-worldness and visual interest!

 

[Edbert]

The Zimmerit is now also attached to the turret:

Dangit Jakko, too many masterpieces!

My Panther will not be posted for a while now. Please keep these coming.

I'm looking forward to you painting the exhaust and tracks the most.

 

[Jakko]

Contributing a feeling of real-worldness and visual interest!

If you're building a model of a real vehicle, this is the way to do it, if you ask me You see plenty of models of this particular tank if you just search for Panther Cuckoo but IMnsHO most of them are not particularly good replicas of it.

Dangit Jakko, too many masterpieces!

Nah, I'm not that great a modeller. I just try to build what I see in photos

I'm looking forward to you painting the exhaust and tracks the most.

I need to buy some track first The kit comes with separate-link tracks that have to be glued together, and I'm not a fan of those. I want to get some workable track instead and have one in mind, but haven't actually bought it yet. As I'll be at a model show for both days this coming weekend, I'll see if one of the traders there has a set (I suspect not, but you neer know), else I'll need to order it somewhere.