ObsessiveTanker

For Christmas this year I have had a lot of trouble in trying to decide weather or not to get a Brummbar from Awesome Hobbies Australia or a StuIG 33B conversion kit from RCTank Wars. Both cost about $400.00. The problem is that I couyld get the Brummbar and be happy, or make a StuIG, otherwise known as a Sturminfanteriegeschutz 33B, and paint it and all of that. The problem with the later is that I dont have an airbrush, and I dont know how hard it would be to spray paint it, or where to find the German Panzer Grey paint that i had in mind. please help. Here are some product pictures of both tanks.

borealis

1 vote for the brummbar, at least you can put traverse in it. Never liked the Sig33

ObsessiveTanker

yea; at this moment my money seems to be going towards the Brummbar. I think i might ask for an added rust look to it, like on my kingtiger that i bought from them.

pattoncommander

The Sig 33B is an easy conversion. Scratch making the box and fitting the 15 cm gun is basic modelling. Interesting vehicle but not much of a history,,some 40+ were built and all were lost at Stalingrad. There was a report that one was seen after the war at PanzerLehr school and used for driver training. It would have been nerve wracking to crew one....that big box didn't have much armor and it was a big target.

DirtyBird69

they both would be cool, just something about those turretless tanks...they just look TOUGH!...(even if some designsweren't) lol.

ObsessiveTanker

I wouldn't say tanks with fixed superstructures arent tough. Think of the Jagdpanther, Jagdtiger, Stug 3 and 4, Panzer 38T, Sturmtiger, ext. These types of tanks, also known as 'assault guns' are often created for special purposes such as anti tanking, mobile artillery, or assault on heavily fortified positions; they typically have a larger cannon or other armorment then tanks with turrets as well as thicker armor. The lack of a turret does cut down on their flexiblility but they are often used in support roles or in lond range scenarios. For example, the Jagdtiger of WWII was a modified Kingtiger that replaced the turret with a fixed superstructure mounting a 128mm Anti tank guun ( PaK 44) and 9.8 inches of armor. It was slow and cumbersome, but it could defeat any allied tank of the war at extremely long ranges, in fact most were not destroyed by enemy confrontations, but rather by their own crews when ammo/fuel ran out. A more successful one was the Stug series of 'tanks' which, according to many references, was Germany's most important AFVof WWII.

pattoncommander

Think you mean Marder series instead of Pz 38T. The 3 Marders were all on 35 and 38T chassis. Germany starting building Sturmgeschütz as a cost and time saving measure, but it was found that the assault guns were extremely effective. Especially the Hetzer and Stu 3 series, which were small and could be hidden anywhere. They were a great ambush vehicle. Problems arose when they started mounting longer, HV guns which severely limited flexability in wooded areas and in town. Jagdpanther was very good, but the Jagdtiger was nothing more than a roadblock. The little PzJäger 1 was a killer, with the potent 47mm PAK on the Pz I chassis.

There's a big difference between the assault guns and Waffenträger or self propelled guns with many large guns being mounted on ridiculously small chassis....like the older 150mm Sig 33 gun on a Pz I, 11 & 38T chassis. Seems the Wehrmacht started the ball rolling and everyone started using assault guns with Russia producing the potent SU-85 & 100 and JSU-122 and 152. At least these has pretty decent armor for the crew. We still had to contend with the SU-57 in Korea, built on the T-70 chassis in 1941. Bad thing was, it was our gun from lend-lease.

ObsessiveTanker

thanks for your comment, i did mean panzerkampfwagen Hezter when I said Panzerkampfwagen 38T.

swathdiver

While they used them for assaults they were better suited as defensive weapons. Even then the nimble Shermans outflanked and overran them en masse.