This is my 11th project, again, another Ebay win. The kit is by Dragon and although I hold thier kits in high regard I must say that the sprues in this particular kit were damaged, especially the turret armor plates which required extensive filling and in the end, zimmerit coating to hide the flaws. The kit is fairly straightforward to assemble, and to round it out I bought the Eduard etched metal set, two Jordi Rubio aluminium gun barrels for the 37mm flak and a set of pricey, but oh so worth it Fruil Modellisimo white metal tracks. The nice thing about this kit is that because it was never actually built, just mocked up, you can run riot with what could have been. This is good because it meant I could apply zimmerit to it even though such practice stopped in late 1944 and apply a very funky splinter cammo paintjob without worrying about athenticity. I also got to try out the latest tool in my armory , a pyrogauvre which I got from Hannants and was made by Historex. This gentle soldering iron allowed we to go over all of the welds and torch cuts to add real definition and to put in place weld seams that were missing from the kit. It really makes a difference once the paint is on and your shading.
As the kit was built I applied zimmerit in a very haphazard waffle pattern using Humbrol modellers putty and Airwaves zimmerit jigs. Once dried, I used my hobby drill with a large dental burr bit to gently remove sections of the zimmerit and scuff the platic beneath to give the appearance of rounds striking the hull. Once assembled with all but the wheels in place, I used Citadel black acrylic spray as an undercoat then proceded to paint the hull and wheels seperately. First a coat of Tamiya Khaki ( XF-49) was sprayed over the entire hull and wheel sprues. Then I used a coat of Tamiya Dark Yellow cut 50/50 with tamiya thinners, sprayed carefully over the hull, filling each panel with paint but leaving a thin dark edge of Khaki undercoat at the edges of each panel giving the vehicle some shading definition. I then sprayed on the primary camoflage colours, again thinned 50/50. These were Tamiya XF-5 Flat Green and Tamiya XF-64 Red Brown. Once this was applied I hand painted in the triangles ( I got this pattern from an excellent book on panther modelling by Compendium Modelling Manuals, NO.22 Panzerkampfwagen V Panther). Once this was done , I post shaded the tank using an 80/20 mix of Tamiya Red Brown (XF-64) and Black (XF-1)cut with 70 percent thinners ( very very thin). this watery dark mix was sprayed along all panel lines, areas of obvious shadow and the edges of the camoflage colour bands and the rims and hubs of the wheels. I then applied a very thin wash of burnt umber oil paint cut with white spirit (turps) all over the entire model to give a little more shading and definition. Then came the drybrushing, for which I used Tamiya dark yellow straight from the pot as the colour used on the model was by now slightly darker due to shading. This I applied sparingly to all raised details along the hull and wheels. Finally came the weathering for which I used Tamiya X-11 Chrome Silver and XF-56 Metallic Grey. I then blacked out all of the tool stowage and forward machine guns and hand painted them with the appropriate colours. The exhaust pipes were painted over with repeated coats of thick burnt umber wash and eventually produced a very pleasing natural looking heat rust effect ( I find this better than pastels ).
Operationally, the Coelian was never in service, which seems a little crazy considering the terrifying toll of Panzers taken by allied airpower especially in the western theatre. The project was begun at the end of 1943 and proceeded only to a wooden full size mock up. Continully put on the back burner by more pressing projects, this much needed Flak panzer was never realised. You can see the the legacy of this vehicle in post war vehicles, especially those of the former Soviet Union who saw the value of integral mobile armored flak for thier tank brigades.
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