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Panzer IV A of 1st Panzer Division, Poland 1.9.1939.
In the first day of the campaign many of the tanks looked as if they had come straight from the factory. After a couple of days their apperance would change to being dusted all over. In addition troops also started to paint over the clearly visible white national crosses. Not such a bad idea considering that for example Panzer IV A had a general armour protection of only 14,5 mm and even the thickest plates were only 20 mm!
Panzer IV A had four distictive features which made it unique among type IV tanks: it had a wider superstructure than the later models, the nose armour plate was rounded a bit like in the early Panzer II's, the commanders cupola was of the "dust bin" type and the turret was not placed on the center line of the superstructure. It also had the tilted armour in the front of the superstructure which re appered in type D. In other respects Panzer IV A did not differ significantly from the other "Stummel" versions (B-F) of Panzer IV.
The model is based on Tamiya's old Panzer IV D which has been converted to type A. I used Aber Panzer IV mudguards and Panzer IV A/D sheet and some extra parts left over from the Tamiya Panzer IV H to make the conversion. Nose plate and the upper hull structure were built from styrene sheet as well as the commanders bin type cupola. Bottom of the tank was detailed using styrene sheet, punch and die set rivets and some self made resin cast parts.
Paint used was Tamiya's Panzer Gray dilluted with 5 % of Dark Blue. Markings were painted using stencils etched out of copper sheet.
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