Konigstiger In Der Gotterdamerung, 1945

This will be the last of the 15mm German AFVs I work on for myself in the foreseeable future and it's quite a fitting end - this time a late production Konigstiger in Hinterhalt camouflage. It's inspired by no particular tank, though I had been reading Wolfgang Faust's excellent book The Last Panther, so was ruminating on the KTs that ran alongside his Panther in the final days of 1945. If you haven't read it, I thoroughly recommend it as it captures the utter futility of these final moments and the horror of many Germans as the Soviet tide washed over eastern Germany.

The Hinterhalt ("Ambush") camouflage scheme was surprisingly easy to do, once you figure out the "trick". Lay down initial color, mask for the hard-edged swathes of Rotbraun and Lichtgrun and paint. Once dry, use a small diameter piece of plasticard rod to dip in the paint and apply alternating colors of dots in each swath, as necessary. The "trick" is to lightly dab the rod on a spare piece of paper or cardboard to remove excessive paint. This keeps all the dots a relatively uniform size/shape and avoids the "bumps" that excess paint cause to the finish.

I enjoyed this scheme so much, I'll probably pick up a 1/56 late war German AFV to do it with. Auf Wiedersehen und danke für die Fritz!