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Germany made heavy use of armored halftracks in WWII. The most numerous was the Sd.Kfz.251, with 15,252 units produced by the war’s end. The final version was known as the Ausf.D, which was produced from early 1943 onwards to simplify and speed up construction. It did so by halving the number of angled plates needed to form the hull. The famous Sd.Kfz.251 halftrack has appeared in Dragon Armor’s 1/72 line of military vehicles models before, but now it comes in a new guise, that of the Sd.Kfz.251/22.
This particular Sd.Kfz.251/22 variant mounted a 7.5cm PaK40 gun in what was formerly the halftrack’s troop compartment. Production commenced in December 1944, the aim being to increase as rapidly as possible Germany’s inventory of self-propelled antitank guns. The mounted gun could traverse a total of 38º, and elevate from -3º to 22º. Part of the roof was removed to accommodate the cannon, and there was also room for 22 ammo rounds in the rear. The Sd.Kfz.251/22 was operated by a crew of four men. This is Dragon Armor’s first depiction of this impressive-looking weapon, and it is expected to be an extremely hot item in the 2011 collection. The fully built-up model is portrayed in the colors and markings of 79.Pz.Artillery.Regt, a unit of the 7th Panzer Division. After magnificent successes under General Erwin Rommel in France, this famous “Ghost Division” spent most of the war fighting on the Eastern Front. The actual vehicle the model is based on fought in Gdynia, Eastern Pomerania, in present-day Poland. |
