Our friend Greg Liska has been working on some German vehicles which he thought people might be interested. Let him tell you about them.
Pictured here are three Self Propelled Guns the Germans began to use to replace tank losses. Quicker to make, lighter, fast and lower in profile, they were a tough opponent. It required the infantry to guard its flanks and the crew had to work together much more closely than in a tank to acquire and destroy enemy armor.
The Stug. IV was fully enclosed and purposely built that way. The 2 open backed Marders were a way to continue to use small, obsolete tanks produced earlier. The Germans had a plethora of chassis from their own and foreign inventories they converted like this.
These 2 vehicles are conversions I’ve built and I’m in touch with a toy company to cast more of them in plastic. They represent a generic tank destroyer and I will use them as all the German and Italian open backed Tank Destroyers as well as a Soviet SU-76. I’m sure there are other uses for it that I have just not yet thought of.
If anybody thinks they have potential for sale on a wider range, please let me know.
Let’s hear your thoughts and I will pass them along.
Why not just go to ebay and buy the Ultimate Soldier version. They are still readily available and sorry to say much more accurate in detail & size than these.
Gary
These are in scale with CTS armor. Stuff like FOV is huge and if you just want one of each, that’s fine. This is not supposed to be ‘accurate’ anymore than the Marx German vehicles. It’s generic so it has multiple uses.
I doubt that generic vehicles will cut it. I think you’ll do better with specific vehicles.
Take the German Marder; there were three variants, utilizing three different chassis and superstructure. We call them toy soldiers, but really they’re not. They’re military models, and the guys playing with them are pretty fussity about details.
Judging from your sculpts, you have the ability to do it. Good luck.
stez
If perfect detail is what you want, these are not for you. They are in scale with CTS armor which saves a lot of space. They can be used alongside the Marx stuff as well, where scale is not much of an issue. There were more than just 3 types of Marder. Just the Marder II alone was mounted on 3 different chassis (R-35, Lorraine and Hotchkiss). Both Marder II and III had guns mid and rear mounted and both sometimes used converted Ziz-3 main guns (re-chambered for 75mm) or mounted the Pak-40 75mm. Then there’s the Panzerjaeger I, which looks a lot like this, too. The list can go on.
guns. I went generic because I don’t want to have to buy a million different variants AND it’ll cover the bases for areas that will just never be made like the Semovente SPGs or the SU-76.
Correction – Marder I had 3 different chassis. Typo.
They look very nice!!.But unfortunately because they are not a very accurate copy of the Marder ,more like a generic self-propelled vehicle and definitely taken from the Hong Kong mold of German ww2 Armor series sold in the late 70’s and early 80 with swap type figures similar to timpo using 1.32 ww2 soldier poses. A very rare and hard to find collection of which a have several complete sets WITH SAME ARMOR VEHICLES. Any ways I will mention that the upper cut and back exit opening done look more realistic that actual original Hong Kong made. Good job and very ingenious!!!
It’s not a copy of a Marder. It’s generic. If I had cast it in green and put a red star on it, it would pass for an SU-76, and therein lies the beauty. The toy you refer to was made by M-Toy. Yes, it provided the chassis and part of the superstructure. The smooth armor shield is made from sheet plastic. the actual chassis is elongated. Take a look at your M-Toy version. The nose is about 1/2 inch shorter. Also – the back end is elongated and the gun deck is sheet plastic. I’ve actually got 3 ways to assemble it and 3 different main guns. This is going to fill a lot of voids in my collection and game scenarios.
Greg,
I think they are fine for what they are. I would buy a couple to add to my German armoured columns. The scale and accuracy is important to some collectors, but these are in the spirit of CTS and the old Marx sets. Besides, the 21st Century vehicles are nice, but they do break from too much movement or in the hands of a child.
It all depends on how you like to collect. I get that. FOV and 21C are more adult collectibles than toys. You display them. These are meant to be game pieces and toys. I went thru my ‘perfect accuracy’ phase long ago. Anybody that wants perfect accuracy would have to discard pretty much all the Marx figures they have. The Germans have good weapons, but the field gear is all wrong. The GIs are post Korean War carrying weapons not issued until 1957 as well as some of the uniforms. I enjoy them for what they are. All the imagination I could muster could not conjure up an open backed SPG, though. So, I made one. I have a bunch coming in about 3 weeks. I’ll show the pics of them as Soviet and Italian vehicles. If needed, I show them along side a pic of the vehicle they represent. I suppose most US toy soldier enthusiasts just do US and German vehicles, though.
Close is good enough for me, as long as Davey at the Alamo didn’t have a Thompson, I’m okay with it. Some of these guys with the sleeve should have 3 buttons instead of 2 , the musket shouldn’t have muzzle bands or the reins are in the wrong hand make me crazy, of course some would say I’m already crazy, but that’s another matter entirely.
I laughed over your post, Ed. Yeah, it’s nice to do the research and know what’s not quite right, but if you nit-pick too much over your toy soldiers, it just ruins the fun. Maybe if I were designing everything from the ground up myself, I’d have it all 100% accurate, but that’s not going to happen. I’ve come to appreciate a bit of ‘ambiguity’ in toy soldier stuff so that they can have multiple roles. I use my Marx German tanks as Pzkw III , IV and Panthers. You’d end up buying SO many different pieces if everything was specific, especially if you’re talking WWII.
Yeah, I do a lot of conversions and if i tried to make everything 100% accurate, it would reduce the number I can do by a great deal. I’m a little picky, I mean i try to get rid of the cartridge boxes or the holsters or other items that are clearly not part of that era, but I’m a little less concerned about the musket or the number of hob nails in the boots. Some people carry it too far in my not so humble opinion and I think they need to get a life or at least lighten up Francis.
VERY entertaining repartee!
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pEEgEE
UPDATE ON German Self Propelled Guns VEHICLE DONE BY GREG LISKA.
I found out that the model you made and that done by Hong Kong in the early 80’s was in fact based in a rare original model call (E50 Jagdpanzer),only two prototype done and very heavy(60-75 tons), armed with 88mm cannon or bigger. I guess will be nice to know where the original mold idea came from as most toy tanks are based in some original and real ones. To find out more either type this name on search internet browser or go to link http://www.combatgroupdynamix.com/Diorama/WargameSeries/Armour/JgPzE50/WargameArmourJgPzE50Dunkelgelb.html
It has some pictures of the model based on real blueprints
They were made on a 3D printer eh,Impressive!!