STALINS IN THE TREELINE CROMWELL MODELS FLACK.pdf

‘Stalins in the treeline’

The final winter of the war and hard

pressed German forces struggle to

hold back the advancing Red Army

from the borders of the Reich. Hiding

in a gateway the crew of the low

silhouette Flak 41 spot Russian

armour approaching through

woodland and moving onto the open

fields in front of them and they

prepare for action...

Cromwell Models Flak 41 by David Parker

The components of the Cromwell Models kit

The completed gun with the exception of one or two smaller fittings. The multicolour scheme derives

from old stocks of spare barells being fitted and left unpainted.

Cromwell Models Flak 41 is one of those

delightful kits that can be built straight

from the box with the absolute minimum of

fuss over a couple of evenings work. Try as

I might I could find very little to improve

upon and the simple assemble procedure

combines with a well designed parts which

fit as intended. The only modifications that

I made were to add the hooks which

secure the gunshields during

transportation and to add the stowage

points for the spikes that secure the gun

on the chassis sides. I also modified the

gunner’s seat, replacing the resin seat

bracket with a copy made from brass tube

so that it would be strong enough to hold

the gunner, but more of that later. In order

to give the gun a more secure fixing to the

cruciform I fitted 2 brass rods into the base

of the gun which located into the

cruciform.

more smoothly than I had anticipated I

turned to figures from the Dragon range as

a convenient source and a good starting

point. The Flak 41 is festooned with seats

and hand wheels and I was reluctant to

have to make too many figures sit in these

positions as it is always very difficult to get

everything to fit, and because the seats

are made of resin they are quite delicate

and not well suited to the rigours of

sculpting a crew. In the end I decided that I

could get away with just 2 seated figures

one of whom was the gunner which I could

not escape. I found a pair of legs from a

Designing the crew

The speedy assembly of the gun was more

that offset by the time consuming process

of designing a gun crew. Although I was

dreading it, the crew came together much

The planned arrangement of the crew around the partially assembled

gun. The gun shields were not fitted to help in fitting the crew.

Pinning the gun to the cruciform.

The 2 seated figures in position on the gun. Note the brass tube

seat support for the gunner.

Nemrod figure which with some

adjustment of the knees and ankles was a

good staring point for the gunner. In order

to get an accurate alignment and to

enable the figure to be fitted into position

after painting I made a new seat frame

from brass and fixed the seat itself to the

gunners legs and with the support still

pivoting I was able to swing the gunner in

and out of position whilst I was test fitting. I

added a Dragon torso dressed in winter

uniform and I fitted wire armatures for the

arms and a Hornet head.

and I dropped one leg down to rest on the

cruciform mount using a wire armature

and also made a new arm so that the

hand was resting on the controls. When I

was satisfied with the fit of both poses I

filled the gaps and sculpted new arms and

legs around the armatures using superfine

miliput. The three remaining gun crew

were adapted from the dragon winter

infantry set with new heads and modified

arms to suit. I took care when arranging

the poses to ensure that the poses worked

together and this works well with the two

crew who are operating the hand wheels

who are both looking forward to try and

glimpse the targets through the gun shield.

The gun commander comes from the

Dragon Arnhem figure set and after

adapting the pose I sculpted a new

zeltbahn as he is not dressed in a padded

winter uniform.

Planning the base

Most pictures of Flaks used in the antitank

role show them located on flat open

ground for a good field of fire but this does

not make for a very interesting

composition. I wanted something a little

more dynamic so I devised the idea of the

gun positioned in a gateway. I had planned

to design my own gateway but I in the end

I used some gates from the MK35 range to

save time. I made gates from plastic card

and I laid out the basic elements of the

composition on a sheet of expanded

Fore the second seated figure I dug out

one of the old crew figures from the

Tamiya Wirlwind kit. These figures are

already seated which made things easier

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