Zimmer-it Up

It's always important to document the heroic failures as well as the successes so this week we'll take a look at an experiment I conducted with applying Zimmerit on 1:100 models.

Firstly, what is Zimmerit?  It's an anti-magnetic mine paste that was applied to German tanks.  If you've ever seen a German tank that looks like its got a bad case of cellulite, then that is Zimmerit.  Here's a close-up photo I took of a JagdPanther at the Imperial War Museum, London that features it.

Nothing a bit of moisturiser wouldn't solve.

The paste is not anti-magnetic, it is just non-magnetic.  It provides sufficient stand-off that a hand deployed panzer-knacker magnetic mine can't find purchase and will fall off.  Based on this, the Geramns decided to apply it to all of their front-line tanks from the end of 1943.  There was just one problem...  Only the Germans used magnetic mines.

The Germans had, once again, made a massive assumption that everyone else would follow suite (like heavy tanks).  Sadly the opposition's thought process went more or less like this:

• USA - Why'd I want to throw the mine when I can launch it on a rocket?
• Britain - Why'd I want to use a magnet when I can use glu-OH LORD!  IT'S STUCK TO MY LEG!
• Russia - Why'd I want to use a mine when I can send wave after wave of my own men to use up their ammo?

Also, Dog Mines

Combined with a rumour that it caused tanks to catch fire (later disproved) it disappears off German armour production lines in September 1944.  More info can be found here.

Now, the Plastic Soldier Company have been producing some fantastic plastic kits of late, but all the German kit is 'sans Zimmerit'.  That's fine for stuff pre December '43 or post September '44 but, for the admittedly quiet  bit in between, the models are technically incorrect.

So what's a boy working on an early 1944 army to do?  There's two obvious choices here:

1. Ignore it.  At 1:100 the Zimmerit is barely visible beyond a slight surface patterning and a softening of the edges.
2. Try and sculpt it on.

I'll admit that Number 1 was the most tempting, given I still haven't started painting the StuG, but the PSC kit did leave me with a load of spare StuG F8 hulls to experiment on so I thought I'd give it a go before entirely rejecting it.

Looking at the patterns of Zimmerit used, I decided that the columns of horizontal lines (pattern 1 here) would be the easiest to replicate (although the waffle scheme - no.6 - was pretty common on StuGs and does look cool).  I also decided to try three methods of replicating it:

1. Paint on green stuff, sculpt lines as soon as applied
2. Paint on green stuff, sculpt lines as soon as the green stuff darkens and dries
3. Paint on green stuff, leave overnight, then sculpt in lines the next day.

Here's the sculpting tool I used.  The important thing is to get something with a decent, broad-ish point on it.

Also, kind of looks like a xenomorpth tail

Approach 1 - Wet Sculpt

I used a standard GW paint brush to apply some liquid breen stuff evenly over the armour plate.  It's important to get the thickness right.  The yellow plastic underneath should not be showing through.
I applied the green stuff to one location then used the sculpting tool to sculpt the lines in.  If I was doing a whole tank I'd then proceed to do the next location, and so on, always sclupting the green stuff as soon as its applied and not letting it dry.  As it was, I only did the one panel to assess the look.

Approach 1 - Sculpted straight after application

To better show the panel off, I then painted it Vallejo "Middlestone", followed by a 50:50 Brown and Black shade followed by a "Buff" drybrush

Approach 1 - allowed to dry and painted

Approach 2 - Short Dry Sculpt

I used the GW paint brush to apply liquid green stuff on all panels.  I should not that the real zimmerit wasn't applied all over a tank (this large scale photo-etch kit shows where it should be), I just wanted plenty of area to experiment with.

Very reminiscent of my early "Space Crusade" era work.  Thick, blotchy and un-even.

I then waited for the green stuff to change to a darker shade of green all over (about 30 minutes).  At this point I then set to work with the sculpting tool.  One thing I noticed was that if I got the lines too close together, it tended to rip the green stuff off which may be useful as a technique for doing battle damaged zimmerit.

Approach 2 - Green stuff applied all over and allowed to dry sufficient for colour to darken

Here's what it looks like after painting

Approach 2 - Painted

Approach 3 - Long Dry Sculpt

The liquid green stuff was painted on at the same time as Approach 2 but left overnight.  The next morning I used the sculpting tool to sculpt in the lines.  I found that it was a lot harder to get a decent line as the tool tended to stick in the solid green stuff.  Teraing seemed to be minimesd though.

Approach 3 - Allowed to dry overnight before working

Here it is painted.

Approach 3 - Painted 

Conclusions

I'd have to say that Approach 2 works the best based on the painted results.  It's also probably the faster approach to use too.  Approach 1 is too slow to do and far too subtle.  The texture does not come through the paint.  Approach 3 was equally underwhelming and difficult to work.

I painted up the Approach 2 example fully (or at least the modded area) to get a better look at the end result.

As mentioned - Zimmerit wouldn't be on track skirts and lower hull top surface as I depicted here.  So don't copy it!

But, I'm still not convinced the end effect is worth it.  The result is far too subtle and really just merges into the paint scheme.  I'll probably stick to non-Zimmerit on the StuG battery but it does seem possible to apply  it if it really bugs you.

I'd appreciate some feedback on this.  Which do you think works better?  Is it worth doing at all?  Feel free to leave a comment below.

Green(stuff) Piece

Hello,

Just a quick update.  I had started writing this entry a few weeks ago to kill time on a business trip.  Finally got around to finishing it off now.  I had made a start on the hedges for the tournament but I've had some difficulty getting a straight cut and need some fatherly assistance.  sadly he's still in Devon on his holidays...

A few years ago, BF used to put a tank crewman in with each tank and these were great little figures, generally either a wounded crewman clutching his arm or a more... pro-active one clutching a sub-machine gun like he's going to hunt down the ATG that just brewed him up.  The German's also got a pretty neat one of one crewman dragging a dazed comrade forward.  At some point BF stopped putting them in the Blister which was annoying but I had managed to build quite a stock pile of Brit and German ones anyway, with a few given by other guys in the club who didn't use them.

Now, I typically use them to show a tank is baled/bogged by sticking one on a penny (I used to try and get a full crew onto a small base) and I have used one as the basis for a tank commander previously, but I was running short of DAK figures to finish off my command bases and I thought, "why not just use some of the SMG armed ones?"

There are two figures that wouldn't look out of place on a DAK base.  One has the DAK style peaked soft cap, goggles and shorts with MP40 by his side whilst the other is emptying his SMG towards the enemy.  Really, the only thing they really need is some webbing (canteen, maybe the bread bag too) to make them blend in with the infantry/guns they are leading.

I'm no sculpter but I have had a stab at using green stuff in conversions before, such as the aforementioned tank commander.

Compared to that, a canteen and bread bag seemed pretty simple!

Firstly, I looked over some reference material (google searches, looking at other DAK figures) to try and work out how the webbing should look.  It's important to get the big detail (relative size, shape, position) right because no amount of fine detail will hide a major boo-boo like getting the canteen stupidly big or on the wrong side!

Here's how it should look:

The next thing is to work out how the sequence.  We need to work outwards with the greenstuff so its Bread Bag, then Canteen, then the strap of the canteen that holds the cup on (the metal cup of the canteen will just be a simple line break on the canteen shape).

Next, I knock up some green stuff into a 50:50 ratio.  I recall an old White Dwarf article saying to use half of what you think you need and it has always seemed good advice; I always seem to mix too much, even then.
No doubt modern White Dwarf would tell you to mix three times as much as you think you need!

The bread bag is fairly simple to do.  I roll out some green stuff onto a wet tile (greenstuff doesn't stick well to wet things.  So keep blades and fingers damp!) and, using an existing model as a reference, cut out a thick rectangle of about the right size for a bread bag.

Now, using a wet blade, lift the rectangle off the pallet and place on the right rear side of the model (again, worth checking a reference when doing it).  I let it sit for about half an hour to partly cure then used a sculpting tool to remove the material between where the belt loops sit, add an indent around the edge to represent the breadbag's front and add two indents for the buckles.

Not modelled - Bread

It's important not to rush things so I left the bag to cure overnight.

Next I worked on the canteens.  I mixed up some more green stuff and formed it into a tear drop size about the size of the canteen (including cup).  This was placed over the breadbag (if present) and allowed to sit for about thirty minutes.  I then flattened the top down to square off the cup and indented a line to show where the cup meets the canteen.

I left that to cure fully and pondered the next step.  I needed a strap to join the canteen to the cap/cup.  However, after a few attempts I had to admit that such a fine strap was just out of my ability.  Thankfully I spotted a post by one of my fellow Brighton Warlords, Ade over at Restless Wargamer.  He had been playing around with a GW product called liquid greenstuff with great effect.  Luke at Onslaught Games had some in stock so, on a whim, I grabbed a bottle.

It's pretty neat stuff.  It can be picked up by brush and can then be cleaned off in water with little impact to the brush afterwards.  It seems to be aimed at patching up finecast models but I decided to experiment and tried "painting on" the strap, like painting a fine line.  This seemed to go well, but wasn't quite as defined as much as I wanted.  Once it cured, I painted on another layer and this seemed to do the trick.  Once it cured, I cut the strap square at the bottom and did some mild filing to get the strap flat but otherwise it required very little work.

So there we go, some relatively simple greenstuffing converts spare tank crews into interesting alternative DAK infantry/commander.