Klöckner-Humboldt-Deutz (KHD) S3000 Truck (ICM kit 35451)

 

This is the first ICM kit of the KHD truck. Released in 2015 this is the S3000 rear wheel drive version. ICM KHD S3000  Subsequent releases include a civilian, a maultier, and 4WD versions

 

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda) Chapter 11: Creating a diorama

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I starting to build and paint some accessories to be placed in the truck but then I got side tracked, as I often do. So, the truck and trailer were relegated to a nice dust free storage box. Early in 2024 I got some inspiration from the excellent ‘The Army that got away' publication which restarted the project. The book tells the story of how the German 15th Army largely escaped from their Atlantic coastal defensive positions after D-Day. Pursued without any real urgency they escaped via the Scheldt estuary pretty much intact.  There is some great info and period images that I’ve never seen before, and it gave me some ideas on how I could finish off this project. 

Sd.Kfz. 7. Building the 8 ton Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen Chapter 12: Dragon kit track fitment

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With the underside of the vehicle now weathered, it was time to attach the running gear. The wheels have been weathered and the task of lining them all up went without incident. It is always a delicate mission getting all these interleaved components to fit as they did before paint. The wheel fit to the axles was a tad loose upon building, so a little paint from airbrushing on both surfaces has now made the fit nice and snug. As a result, I deliberately left the middle row pairs un-glued, so I had some wiggle room, and relied on just fixing the inner and outer pairs to their axles instead. 

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda) Chapter 10: Connecting all the painted sub-assemblies

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The engine and cab are now firmly attached to the chassis. It was a nerve racking moment making sure it all aligned correctly as there are no actual locating tabs! There are raised runners under the cab floor but nothing to channel the alignment. It basically just locates over the fenders using the arch profiles as a guide. 

 

 

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda) Chapter 9: Weathering the chassis

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Moving onto the running gear, with the intention of displaying both the L4500 and trailer abandoned in a ditch at the side of the road, the height of the truck will mean the underside of one side will remain highly visible. With this in mind, I needed to create a well worn and mucky chassis. 

The fact that only the one side would be visible meant the next process could first be experimented on the dark side.

To start proceedings, a selection of dark coloured Abteilung oils were chosen,  squeezed out onto a piece of card and left for an hour to ensure they would leave a nice matt finish. These included grease, raw umber, brown wash and light mud. So as not to end up with a splodgy mess selected areas were applied dry and left for a few hours.  These included all the moving parts like the propshaft universal joints, steering linkages and differentials with grease. Raw umber and brown wash colours were, much like a pin wash, but added dry, to recessed areas that would capture dirt and debris. Finaly light mud was added to areas where the tyres would rotate.

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda) Chapter 8: Adding a trailer

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The trailer I choose was an old Azimut resin kit that I purchased from Scale Model Challenge Telford, and constructed many moons ago. It is an extremely basic kit but somehow one of the side panels was still 20mm shorter than the other! The axles were also made of lead so they simply collapsed under the weight of the built up vehicle, splaying out the wheels!  It is a terrible kit TBH, and although I fixed the panel length and strengthened the axles, I had no desire to progress further with it, so up it went, straight onto the shelf of shame.

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda) Chapter 7: Painting

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With the kit fully built in sub assemblies I plan to show this as a late war supply vehicle towing a trailer which has been pushed off the road on a Northern France or Belgium road during the retreat to the Rhine in 1944.

Preparing softskins for paint is often a tricky business. For one there is rarely anywhere suitable on the vehicle to hold or suspend it safely. Then there is the issue of completing the interior before masking glass areas to complete the exterior. I often prepare at the building stage and this almost always make the whole project a far more enjoyable experience.

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda) Chapter 6: Wheels & tyres and kit build report

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Wheels and tyres

Although the kit's narrow shoulder treaded tyres do look a little odd they do appear to be authentic and there are pictures of them on L4500's. Whether these are post war I cannot determine.

 

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda) Chapter 5: Cab assembly and engine bay

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Cab construction

Once the main chassis compenents have been fitted we move onto the cab construction. As is often the case with truck and car builds we are faced with the dilemma of how to approach painting the interior.  Unfortunately, Zvezda have not helped us with this task!  They have designed the cab roof to join just behind the screen where no joint on the real vehicle (so far as I could determine) was present. Filling the joint after painting the interior would not be my preferred plan of attack so I figured that issue would need to be addressed first.

I have already built the Zvezda L4500S kit with the wooden cab and found a fair amount of parts on this kit are identical.  You got both the metal and wooden cab with that kit and as I had already built up this cab previously, I employed the same method of construction with this one.

To be able to get decent access to paint the cab interior and add the instrument decals the cab ideally needs to be built in two halves. I preferred to leave the screen and all the cab windows off rather than mask them, until after the cab is painted. 

I started the cab construction by building up the rear section, cementing the floor and rear panel together. I left off both the seat and seat back until both parts had cured to avoid any potential interference. There are a couple of tabs on the inside of the rear panel to line up to the floor and it is important to make sure the lower points of the rear panel sit at the same height as the bottom of the floor moulding.  I found out in my earlier build this positioning is crucial for getting the best overall alignment of the cab, and  critical if building the cab with the doors closed.

 

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda) Chapter 4: Aftermarket resin wheels and suspension

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Aftermarket wheels

If you are to employ an aftermarket set of wheels beware to check before adding parts C42 and C43 to the rear axle. The kit's outer hub moulding was included as part of the outer wheel in my Hussar aftermarket set, so the inner rear wheels mounted directly to the backplate parts C39 and C40

Axles

The front and rear axles are nicely rendered, and all the small assemblies go together without issue. The front wheels are designed to turn but unless you go to the effort of drilling out the steering arm, drag link, and knuckle arms, you don't get to articulate the wheels. I did this successfully with a previous L4500S build but this time I decided to fix the wheels once I had confirmed the angle I wished them to sit. The track rod keeps both hubs in alignment.

 

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda) Chapter 3: Cargo bed & chassis

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Cargo body

 

The wooden framed cargo body is attached to the chassis via three beams which are secured with U-shaped shackle pins. Access to insert the shackle pins is extremely difficult if you plan to keep the frame and beams separate, but there is an alternative build process to those in the instructions worth considering as I discovered.

This option is to just attach the cargo beam parts F17, F26, and F27 (step 8) once the chassis is built up, leaving you to attach the remaining frame parts as per step 7, to the cargo bed. This way you can add the U- shaped shackle pins but keep the cargo bed separate. 

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda) Chapter 2: Engine

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Engine

The instructions start with the engine and gearbox and the Mercedes-Benz OM 67/4, Diesel is quite a substantial assembly once built up. Noteworthy from the outset is the engine and gearbox will not fit in the engine bay once the cab floor is fitted. A mistake I have made with other similarly designed kits on the odd occasion in my enthusiasm to complete a build. Sadly, one half of my engine block was severely warped.  Whether this was a manufacturing defect or a direct result of being packaged in a loose bag and getting trapped against another sprue in transit will remain a mystery.   

The whole assembly is nicely detailed and even includes an oil dipstick, however, looking at ref pics there does look like a chunk of cooling pipework is missing over the manifold. If displaying the bonnet/hood completely open, fuel pipes to the injectors will also need to be added as will a battery and bulkhead pipework and wiring.   

Mercedes L4500A (Zvezda 3596 1/35) Chapter 1: What's in the box

 

 

The Mercedes-Benz L 4500 was built by Daimler-Benz from 1939 –1944 in the Mercedes-Benz plant Gaggenau,^[1] and from 1944 – 1945 by Saurer. The vehicle is a long-bonnet truck and was offered as a rear-wheel-drive truck (L 4500 S) and as an all-wheel-drive truck (L 4500 A). The German Wehrmacht used the L 4500 with armoured cabins as Flaks during World War II. Due to the lack of production material, the cabin was replaced with the simplified standardised Wehrmacht cabin and the mudwings with simplified wings in 1943.^[2] Also, the L 4500 chassis was used for the Sonderkraftfahrzeug 4. 

Sd.Kfz. 7. Building the 8 ton Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen. Chapter 8: Dragon kit: painting the engine bay, accessories, wheels, tracks and tyres

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The engine details and visible portions of the exhaust were brush painted with Vallejo acrylics.

 

Sd.Kfz. 7. Building the 8 ton Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen. Chapter 7: Dragon kit hairspray chipping

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Hairspray chipping

I have always found the best results can be obtained using acrylic paints mixed with water, but with a slightly different approach it can also be effective using lacquers. For this build I wasn't looking for a heavy chipped paint finish but rather tired looking paint with a worn patina, showing fine scratches and chips added to edges and damaged areas of bodywork. This I attempted by adding three layers of slightly different base coloured tones.

This effect works best by adding hairspray in-between light layers of paint. It then becomes a process of distressing each layer before adding the next. The proceeding paint layer will soften the chipped effect in the previous layer so adding the heaviest chips into the first layer work best. You can then fine-tune the process along the way. The last coat is always the lightest so as not to diminish the effects gained in the previous two layers. 

Slightly modulated first base coat paint mix on the bonnet

Sd.Kfz. 7. Building the 8 ton Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen. Chapter 6: Dragon kit painting

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Before I committed to priming the model, some more paraphernalia including tarps were added to the cargo and cab areas. The cab bench received some crew gear along with some rope and a canteen lid. The engine bay also received some rags and cloths to give the impression the engine had been worked on before it was abandoned.

Primer coat.

The whole model received an airbrushed coat of Mr Surfacer 1500 black. Any imperfections were dealt with and then it was time to decide on a base coat. Unlike the strangely coloured box art all these late war vehicles would have left the factory in plain Dark yellow (Dunkelgelb). Any camouflage would then have been applied in the field. 

 

 

Sd.Kfz. 7. Building the 8 ton Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen. Chapter 5: Trumpeter vs Dragon kit comparison and reworking some inaccuracies

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An introduction to modelling the Sd.Kfz.7 can be found here

The pics below were taken before the Trumpeter kit was painted so we can compare them side by side. The most striking difference is the height of the canvas tilt frame! The Trumpeter one looks far too low, and this seems to be confirmed in period images. 

The next thing to notice is how soft the Trumpeter kit’s details look. The radiator housing fins being a prime example. The front fender profile difference is also clear to see here. The Dragon kit has the correct one. The Trumpeter model's running gear and front wheels also sit a little lower on the chassis.

 

Sd.Kfz. 7. Building the 8 ton Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen. Chapter 4: Dragon kit brief build history

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I started this build in around 2015 and the main components had already been assembled. The only aftermarket parts I used was a set of 'Quick wheel' front wheels. These come in two parts and to construct them the seperate hub and spoke part simply 'click and turn' into the rim and tyre section. I built the kit up in sub sections to make painting easier, but unlike my Trumpeter kit build I had already attached the cab to the chassis. This means that some areas I would have liked to improve on will have to remain. 

 Built up kit with the kit 50/50 plastic and vinyl tyres test fitted and the outer track wheels left off to aid painting.

Sd.Kfz. 7. Building the 8 ton Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen. Chapter 3: Dragon Kit 6562

 

 

Continuing on from the introduction

 

Apart from the Trumpeter kit 01507 the only other Sd.Kfz.7 Holzpritsche version currently on the market in 1/35 is by Dragon. Their kit #6562 was released in 2009. 

Sd.Kfz.7. Mittlerer Zugkraftwagen 8t KM m11 Holzpritsche. Chapter 2: Trumpeter kit 01507

Trumpeter kit #01507

This kit depicts the very last war time Sd.Kfz.7 variant that came with the wooden cab and body. This 2009 boxing was the second in what has now become one of nine Trumpeter releases based on this widely used vehicle. As with all their 8-ton kits they do have some accuracy issues and can be particularily challenging to build in places. The good news is, if you do put the effort in you are rewarded with a great looking model. Once you build a few of these kits, you begin to realise creating alternative construction steps makes for a much more pleasureable build, ultimately resulting in a much nicer end product.

 

The only aftermarket addition to my build is a Quick Wheel resin front wheel set. The headlamps have been replaced with the smaller 'final' style taken from another axis softskin. The overall look of the cargo tilt has been improved with VMS paper and shaper and integrated into the kit's tilt cover moulding. It was painted with MRP & Tamiya lacquers, Tamiya and Valleo acrylics, and with AK enamels, MIG pigments,  and Abtielung oils

A step by step build log of this kit can be found here

 

 Chapter 3 - Dragon kit #6562