Dragon Sd.Kfz.251/9 Ausf.D

While Dragon's Sd.Kfz.251 series contains a large selection of halftrack variants, one variant that is lacking is the Sd.Kfz.251/9 (the one armed with the short 75mm L/24 "Stummel" gun). Revell comes to the rescue, but only partially, offering the Sd.Kfz.251/9 Ausf.C, while Hasegawa has an Sd.Kfz.251/9 Ausf.D in its range; the version in the Hasegawa kit being the late one, where the gun mount was installed on top of the roof.
So, this leaves us with one version of the Sd.Kfz.251/9 that isn't available in plastic (as far as I know of): the Sd.Kfz.251/9 Ausf.D early. As this version had a floor-mounted gun, with a cut-out roof, very much like the Sd.Kfz.251/9 Ausf.C, a logical option is to mix and match the Revell Sd.Kfz.251/9 Ausf.C with any Dragon Sd.Kfz.251 kit that you have lying around.

(Note that Stephen Brezinski converted a Dragon Sd.Kfz.251 Ausf.C kit to a /9, which upon the release of the Revell kit has become a redundant conversion, unless you prefer Dragon's detail.)

The conversion process is relatively easy to explain:

Build the Dragon kit without the roof and driver's visor and remove part of the interior (more about that below).
Adapt the Revell roof/visor part to the Dragon kit.
Install Revell's gun with its mount inside the Dragon hull.

The vehicle I wanted to represent was the one captured by the 153rd Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, Guards Armoured Division in Germany, 1945 as illustrated in [4] and found here.

Building the Dragon kit

I started from Dragon kit 7317 (Sd.Kfz.251/7 Ausf.D with 2.8cm sPzB 41), because I had quite a few of these kits lying around and because I believe this is a very rare variant, to say the least. Most of the remarks in this section will be applicable to any Dragon kit of the Sd.Kfz 251 Ausf.D, however.

From Henk of Holland website, used with permission.

It is best to leave the suspension off until the end, to avoid damage, whatever the instructions tell you.
While the concept of interlinked roadwheels is nice, I decided to cut off the individual wheels of parts B4 and B5, as this allowed me to position them all with the holes in a slightly different position (the inner wheels won't line up in this way, but this is almost impossible to see), whereas the kit parts "as such" all have them in the same position.
The tracks (which are type D1 in this kit) were a tad short in my kit and the position of the drive sprocket made them touch the front of the fenders. Moving the drive sprocket slightly backward solved both issues. Note that the drive sprocket was fitted with rubber pads, which need to be painted dark grey/black. I also removed the thin overlapping end of the DS tracks as it would have made the tracks too thick in the overlapping area. I am still not 100% happy with the result and will probably build a small diorama for the vehicle so it can be hidden. (To that end, it's better to have the ends of the track connect on the bottom.)
The teeth were salvaged and glued back in place. Note that DS tracks can be glued with ordinary glue, but that they easily snap when glue is applied to tracks that are under tension.
My kit had the old instructions for the front suspension. Unfortunately, I forgot that we already mentioned this in the preview, and built it as per the instructions as well as I could (as they are somewhat contradictory).

Correct installation of parts B2, B3 and B22 in some instructions (picture on the right), confusing and wrong in others (picture on the left), as in my kit.
(Pictures by Timothy Lau.)

I believe that the corrected instructions are still confusing. A comparison with the instructions from AFV Club kit 35251, might help.

(Picture by Timothy Lau.)

A useful picture can also be found here.
This is how decided to assemble the parts in the construction of kit 7310.

The floor plate (A8) is a bit too narrow, although most of this will be hidden behind the lateral seats in versions where these are installed. They weren't in mine, so I added thin plastic strips.
There is interference between the dashboard (A17) and the upper hull (A1), if the former is not lowered a bit. (Removing material from the top will damage the nice dials, so better work from the bottom.)
While the upper hull should hang over the lower hull, this is overdone in the kit. It actually seems as if the lower hull is too narrow for the upper hull and rear plate.

Picture from the construction of kit 7310.
I chose to install the flanges (C9) to the lower hull before adding the upper hull. If you bend them outwards slightly, this will ensure a tight fit when the upper hull is added. Otherwise you will have to fiddle around with clamps.
There are sink marks on the rear hull plate (A16) that will remain visible after construction, if not filled in.
The attachment of the rear Notek (B8) is very (!) weak.
If the rear doors are left open, the handle (A23) should be put in the horizontal position, something Dragon overlooked.
While both tracks are marked "D" in the instructions and "D1" and "D2" on the rubber sprue, one (D2) is actually one link longer than the other (D1) and should go on the right. (On the real vehicle the tracks had 56 links on the right and 55 on the left [3].)
The Sd.Kfz.251 had its front licence plate painted on. Part MA1 is thus redundant.
I replaced the width indicators with a combination of butterfly pins and brass tubing. The picture of the vehicle shows no sign of width indicators, though. I left of the rear view mirror, which was typically mounted to the left width indicator, as I thought that this would have been visible in the picture, while the width indicators might just be invisible due to the quality of the picture.
I left off (forgot) the small reflector below the rear left mudguard; this would have been very fragile.

Modifications to the Dragon kit to turn it into a /9

In the interior I omitted the following parts from the Dragon kit:
- A9, A10, A11, A12, A21, A22, A27
- B33, B34
- C2, C3, C4, C5, C6, C8, C10, C11, C13
- MA4 (These are the holders for the MP40 and an example of the incoherence of Dragon's PE sets, as they are not included in every variant, even though they all have the MP40.)
A25 was lost and scratchbuilt.
Parts A18, B14, B15 and C12 (driver's visor) and G16 (roof) were replaced with the corresponding Revell part (E92), which only required a little bit of sanding where the parts meet. Note that parts B14 and B15 represent armored glass and should be transparent (which would be most obvious if the driver's visors are left open).
I shortened the backrest of the driver's seat (C14). The co-driver's seat (C14 + C15) was removed. This is typical of these early /9, due to the cramped driver's compartment.
The Dragon radio (B18) was omitted and replaced with the Revell radio (C36), which was installed on the right side of the interior.
Everything related to the sPzB 41 and pontoon bridges was left off. Note that this kit has very faint location markers for the pontoons that need to be sanded down.
The remaining benches and box came from the Revell kit (parts C25, C27 E94).
The complete gun mount was taken from the Revell kit and dropped into place. It needed to be lowered a bit, which I did in parts E85 and E86.

Further modifications to turn it into the captured vehicle I had chosen are

The rear gun mount (B17) was not present in the vehicle. It was left off and the hole plugged.
The vehicle did not show an antenna mount.
A gun mount for a .50 MG and the MG itself needs to be added. This was done with bits from the spares box and some scratchbuilt items.
If you want to represent the vehicle exactly as in the picture, a trailer needs to be added.

Decals and Markings

The vehicle was painted in a mixed green (representing SCC 15) over Dunkelgelb. The latter remains visible in the interior and on parts of the chassis.
[4] does not show a picture of the real vehicle, only an illustration (which is the case for all the vehicles in the book), which I consider a weakness. The book mentions that the nose decals are speculative (because probably only one picture is known). While the decals are well printed by Cartograf, I believe the blue in the decals is too light. (Actually, almost all blue colors on the decal sheet are represented by the same light blue.) Furthermore, the scribbling on the rear doors (which is illustrated in the book and seen in the pictures) is lacking.
After giving it some thought, I decided to paint the pale blue areas with a darker blue, freehand. This is, obviously, a trade-off between keeping the finely printed detail and matching the right color. Better would be to just replace all the decals that contain the wrong color with new ones.

Accuracy

A discussion about the dimensional accuracy of the Dragon Sd.Kfz.251 Ausf. D can be found here.

References

[1] Panzer Tracts 15-2 Mittlere Schuetzenpanzerwagen (Sd.Kfz.251), T.L. Jentz & H.L. Doyle

[2] Panzer Tracts 15-3 Mittlere Schuetzenpanzerwagen (Sd.Kfz.251) Ausf.C & D, T.L. Jentz & H.L. Doyle

[3] Kanonenwagen Sd.Kfz.251/9 "Stummel", Nuts & Bolts 21, H.F. Duske, T. Greenland, D. Terlisten

[4] Captured Panzers, German vehicles in Allied Service, M. Jaszczolt, A. Wrobel, Kagero Mini Topcolors 39

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Article Last Updated: 16 February 2020 22 February 2020 28 February 2020 31 March 2020	Back to Home Page