Gordon Williamson

Yeah, 1/35. What looks like a large chunk of cast metal weighing many kilos in the pic is actually just over a centimeter long and weighs about a gram. :-)

Relatively so. Certainly with things like the Streifendienst, Zugwache etc, the Auweis they carried is much harder to find than the Soldbuch or Wehrpass. I'd have loved to have seen that one !! (This was the first stuff I had an interest in collecting way back in the late 60s early 70s, long before KM or EK stuff distracted me- I never gave up on it, it just took a back seat for a decade or so )

But look closer at the tiny track link and see that they have even been able to replicate the foundry casting serial number on the link.

Many thanks. I'm glad you like it. As one who can remember spending pocket money on Airfix kits costing 2 Shillings ( 10p or 15cents in Todays money) back in the early 60s, when kits were really crude by todays standards, and as someone who trained in Engineering as a toolmaker, I can really appreciate the phenomenal skills of the guys who make the tools to create these kits. The Panther lower hull running gear and tracks are now done. These are the real metal tracks once they are chemically corroded etc.

Thanks for the kind words Joe. I haven't done any serious Armour modelling for many years, but there is a frustratingly long wait between releases of component parts for the wooden Victory and Hood projects so I decided to wait two or three months and let parts accumulate so I could make decent progress in one go, rather than adding a couple of parts then waiting weeks for the next components. Meantime, I thought I'd have a bash at some Armour for a change. At least AFVs take up a lot less room that large ship models.

Next stage is the broken down Panther this this Bergepanther will be towing. The tracks provided with the Bergepanther kit were dreadful so the Panther G it will be towing donated its tracks and it in turn will receive a set of real metal tracks, each pinned together just like the real tracks. I saw a neat article showing just how fantastic these metal tracks look when properly weathered with a special chemical specifically for that purpose. The Bergepanther will be dressed up with lots of the "clutter" that is found on a real ARV when its ready to be mounted with the broken down Panther G. Meanwhile here is a shot of the metal tracks shown alongside the good quality Plastic tracks from the Panther G, that went on to the Bergepanther.. More to follow..........

One thing that struck me when I first set eyes on a real Panther was that it is a really big tank. Well over 2m from ground level to the top of the hull. Figure shown here for scale.

The Bergepanther could be equipped with a 2cm cannon and two machine guns, but these were rarely if ever fitted in action so I won't be permanently attaching these.

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With the spade, crane and housing around the winch added.

Wafer thin "Zimmerit" paste in resin was also added to the exterior.

The new resin hull floor was also a bit of a nightmare, with a lot of cutting and filing to get it to fit properly. Still, looking down into the hull with the suspension torsion bars and the transmission, driver and radio-operator areas etc all faithfully reproduced, it was worth the effort.

I decided to look around and found a resin moulded interior set. Nightmare to work with, with tiny brittle parts and many parts still attached to large moulding plugs, having to be carefully separated witha razor saw. Add to that parts which were provided with no indication of what they were for and very vague instructions, these resin sets are not simple to work with. However, once I finally figured out what parts went where and put it together, the winch was a huge improvement over the crude kit parts.

I was up in the attic looking for something the other day and came across an unbuilt kit from years ago. After seeing Spasm's fine Panther model ( a tank I have always had a great interest in) I decided to dig this one out and put it together. Sadly once I opened the box, I remembered why I hadn't bothered to build it. As an ARV without a turret, the interior is visible and the interior provided with the kit is extremely crude and simplified. Here are the forward interior parts and the winch parts from the kit, just thrown together for comparison purposes. Obviously a bit of work and careful painting would improve these a little.

The reverse features a list of his powers.

Picked this one up from a German auction thanks to another tip-off from Ian. A nice, late war Ausweis for a member of the Streifendienst. Interestingly, the Ausweis was originally due to expire in December 1944, but in January 1945 was rather optimistically extended to Deecmber 1945.

Thanks for the added info Ian. So Gunkel wasn't anything to do with SS-Fg Komp 17, the unit Lösel commanded. My guess then is that they just met up in Nürnberg-Langwasser and the fact that he is a Zugführer to Lösel as Kompanie commander refers to the way the prisoners were organised (into Companies) which would explain Lösel being referred to as commander of 516 Kompanie,(nothing to do with his former unit in GvB) a PoW Company, with Lösel as senior PoW perhaps in charge of a block.?

And the card which accompanied the photo. Who knows what might turn up next !!!

A photo taken to commemorate a Police event in Bodenbach. Lösel is arrowed.

And in German Police uniform.

And a few photos. This one shows him with his sister. Taken before Germany occupied the Sudetenland, it shows him in Czech Police uniform.

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His trade union membership card (BGD = Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund)

He was in the Sudetendeutsche Landsmannschaft until at least 1979. The organisation still exists.

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