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, crates, chalks and more. For this REI set we used one Artitec Hummel self-propelled howitzer, one Roco Hummel munition transport vehicle and two Artitec six axle flat cars which are painted and weathered. The Artitec 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 set that will make a great addition to any collection.
** Please Note: The Artitec Military Transportation Chain Set 387.300 would add some additonal detail.
Hummel History: The German word ‘Hummel’ means bumblebee. The Sd.Kfz.165 armored fighting vehicle had a nasty sting. The Hummel were fitted with two main types of self-propelled guns. One was fitted with an anti-tank gun and the other with an artillery howitzer, like the Hummel. A vehicle fitted with an artillery field howitzer was called a ‘Geschüetzwagen’, which when translated in english means ‘gun vehicle’. The letters ‘Sf’ stand for ‘Selbstfahrlafette’ – self-propelled carriage. ‘Panzerfeldhaubitze’ means armoured field howitzer. Self-propelled artillery guns were developed to enable fast moving attacks to have artillery support that could keep up with the speed of advancing Panzer Divisions. They could use direct fire mode at targets they could see or, more commonly, use indirect fire at targets plotted on a map. They were not designed to be in the front line or engage in combat with tanks. They were motorized artillery guns that could fire high explosive HE shells over the heads of friendly troops. Most targets would have been given to the crew as map grid references by forward observation officers or infantry units under attack. Quite often, the gun crews could not see where their shells landed, as the target was so far away. They would have to rely on the forward observer to tell them if adjustments had to be made. A total of 705 Hummel 15cm self-propelled artillery guns were built by the end of the Second World War in 1945 and 157 Hummel ammunition carriers were also produced.
