Dragon Panzer III Ausf. E

[TheNordus]

Hello, I recently traded out some of my kits for vehicles I've been wanting to have for a while, and among them was this Imperial Series Panzer III Ausf. E from Dragon.



I set out to build it immediately, and after about 5 days of working on it slowly, I'm almost done with the build.





Here's a few shots of the instructions, photo-etch and the decals. You do get a lot of unused parts, but since they're 1997 vintage or older, they're really not worth storing, I think. It's nice that they included the photo-etched mesh for the engine intakes, but the detail on them is a lot less than what you get today! Overall the kit is somewhat similar in quality to Tamiya's Panzer III Ausf. L, although Tamiya's engineering is much, much, much, much, much better.
I'm probably going to paint this as the vehicle in Balkans, 1941.



The build started with the wheels. There are some rather unfortunate ejection pin marks on the idler and return rollers.



Next up was some 'surgery' as they had you move the front idler to the correct position for this model of tank.




I was a little uneasy about this, but I think overall it turned out okay. It had to be done on both sides of the hull.





I jumped around the instructions while building this, filling holes (this kit required quite a bit of filler!) and working on the turret and hull alternatively.


The cupola was highly unimpressive to me, the parts didn't want to fit their designated places and I was left with huge, wonky gaps. This required some filler and I have not yet finished working on this bit.



Here's the build right now, I have not quite yet finished everything, mainly the suspension arms are waiting on whether or not I'm going to put this vehicle on a diorama or not. Accessories include a "fascine" of wood which most Ausf. E tanks seemed to carry, and a jack from the Tamiya early jerry cans kit.



While putting on the smoke candles on the back the whole thing burst apart and I lost one part of it, which I had to try and make out of plasticard. The candles I had to scavenge from a Panzer II kit.




Here's some more pieces stolen from other kits. I decided to put on a Notek light from the early jerry can set and I actually bought a set of Tamiya Pz IV tools to get holders for the jack. I also took a slide-molded MG34 and used it's barrel as the hull machine gun. For the turret machine guns, I drilled the barrels with the point of a blade. I've also got a set of Magic Tracks that should fit this vehicle, although the tracks that come with the vehicle are not too bad, they just require a lot of cleaning.



Here's a mock-up of how the accessories will look once painted. I wanted to throw the jack on the back to imply the crew had recently had to change a roadwheel or something similar.

Thanks for looking, please leave any comments and criticisms you want.