Together with the Bergetiger I talked about earlier this year, this Panzerbeobachtungswagen V was bought in my Tokyo trip last year in November/December. By the way, this thing's official name sure is a mouthful to pronounce or to type! ^^;
Panzerbeobachtungswagen V (Armoured Observation Vehicle, PzBeobWg V in short) is an artillery observation variant of the Panther tank. A small number of battle damaged Panther tanks were converted into such specialised vehicles. This one seems to be based on the late war Ausf G variant. They do not engage in combat, but spot targets for artillery, while having sufficient armour to survive enemies attacks in case of ambush.
This particular miniature is a special item for Dragon Can.Do's shokugan series, namely under the Jagdpanther, which is a turretless tank destroyer variant of the Panther tank.
What makes Panzerbeobachtungswagen Panther special is the different gun mantlet as well as a shorter gun. The gun is actually for show though, as it's only a wooden dummy gun; the observation tank needs every space inside for radio and observation equipments. At least that may fool the enemies to think it is not completely defenseless.
The tank also comes with a figure of the same scale, and here is a comparison with a Japanese 100 Yen coin.
Like with other tanks I have talked about previously, here is a simple diorama, which I captioned "Stand strong, and look ahead!". Hope you like it!
That is a small soldier, but very nicely detailed. As always, you have an awesome diorama shot.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment and your compliment! These 1/144 figures are real small and light; you can literally blow them away!
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