Product Features and Details
Model: Each REI Military Model is professionally hand-painted and thus highly unique. Each set is painted in authentic camouflage patterns, and each one is disassembled, masked, and airbrushed before being reassembled for the final touches. You'll find such features as carefully weathered and painted side frames, painted deck boards which includ wooded chalks and more. For this REI set we used a Artitec Stug III and a Artitec four axle flat car painted in a winter camoflage. Flat car is a highly detailed model, it has complete undercarriage detail, deck details and comes equipped with NEM 362 coupler pockets. This is a unique model that will make a great addition to any collection.
** Please Note: The Artitec Military Transportation Chain Set 387.300 would add some additonal detail.
ABOUT OUR ARTIST: Our artist is a professional model builder and one of the world's premier commission scale model artists in North America. He is also a former US Army paratrooper and has garnered over 300 awards for his work. He has published dozens of articles in numerous scale modeling magazines and has painted box art buildups for most of the world's leading scale model companies. His work is found in private collections around the globe. This is a great opportunity to own a true piece of art by a master modeler.
STUG III History: Artitec 387.49-CM The StuG III, or Sturmgeschütz (assault gun) III, was originally designed in the late 1930s as an assault artillery platform to support infantry in attacks on pillboxes and other fixed fortifications. It utilized the chassis of the Panzer III and was originally armed with a low velocity short-barreled 7.5 cm KwK 37 L/24 gun, firing high explosive shells. When the Wehrmacht’s Panzer III and IV tanks ran up against the better-protected Soviet T-34 and KV-1, there was an immediate need for an effective mobile anti-tank gun. In early 1942 the StuG III was armed with a high-velocity 7.5 cm StuK 40 L/43 gun and became the predecessor for later Jagdpanzer, or tank destroyers. The gun was mounted into a fixed position, making the StuG III easier and cheaper to produce than a tank with a rotating turret. While the StuG III had to maneuver to fire the gun could be traversed sideways 25° to 30°. An MG 34 machine mount was added to the top of the vehicle for protection against enemy infantry. The StuG III Ausf. G is the 1943-and-later version of the vehicle which mounted armor plates, or Schürzen, on its sides for additional protection and it was armed with the longer-barreled 7.5 cm StuK 40 L/48 gun. After November 1943 StuG III Ausf. G models had a more angled and rounded gun mantlet, referred to as Saukopf (pig’s head), which proved to be more effective at deflecting enemy shells. More StuG IIIs were produced than any other German armored vehicle during the war.
PLEASE NOTE: These models are all handmade and painted which makes every one unique. This means the paint patterns may vary a little and the detail parts like sandbags, turret tracks, antennas, etc. may also be arranged differently. This was also the case in real life. These models are very prototypical.
