Rheintochter 1 Launcher with E-100 Body
Manufacturer – Modelcollect
Kit Number - UA72076
Scale - 1/72nd
Price - ¥2,480 • $23 • £17 • €20 from Hobbylink Japan
V-I Launcher with E-100 Body
Manufacturer – Modelcollect
Kit Number - UA72071
Scale - 1/72nd
Pt.I: In-Boxed: Review Link
Pt.II: Build Putting it together
Pt.III: Painting, Weathering &Finishing the V-I & Rheintocher w/E-100 Launcher
Pt.II: Build Putting it together
Pt.III: Painting, Weathering &Finishing the V-I & Rheintocher w/E-100 Launcher
Today - the final part Painting and Weathering the V-I & Rheintocher with E-100 Launcher kits...
Okay, lets get some paint on the E-100, and the world's your mollusc of choice here, as these are very much 'what if' machines. The instructions give you a couple of interesting schemes drawn up by AMMO, but I went with a simpler yellow/green hard edges camo. To get the ball rolling, I gave the hull a coat of AMMO Dunkelgelb (A.MIG-010), lightened with a little white.
After that I mixed a lighter shade using AMMO Cremeweiss (A.MIG-017) with a little Dunkelgelb added in. This was used to add some highlighting to the edges of panels, and mottling over the rest of the upper hull to break up the finish.
The side panel on the front right was sprayed with a red primer colour (A-MIG-014), as this area would be visible due to the missing front fender. I also sprayed the mount for the launcher in the same colour, as I wanted it to look like a conversion to an existing E-100 hull.
I now painted and weathered the wheels and lower hull, as this needed doing before the tracks and fenders were added. The wheels were painted in the same way as the hull, then weathered with various earth coloured enamel washes and pigments. The rims of the road wheels, and the teeth on the sprockets were given a coat of steel to show where they would have been polished by the tracks.
The tracks were sprayed up in a dark black/brown tone using Tamiya paints thinned with lacquer thinner. In hindsight, I should have primed these, as some paint flaked off the flexible plastic when fitting the tracks, which then needed touching up. It would be much simpler if manufacturers would mould tracks, either flexible or single-link types, in a suitable track colour, rather than pale brown and sand tones, a habit that I've never understood.
Now came the problems, as it proved impossible to slip the tracks over the previously attached road wheels. I probably shouldn't have glued the ends of the tracks together before trying to fit them, but even if they'd been unglued it would have been virtually impossible to fit the tracks over the sprockets, as there isn't enough clearance between the sprockets and the underside of the hull overhangs. Fortunately, I hadn't glued the sprockets in place, so I could slip them off, but I still had to cut the track runs to enable them to be fitted around the remaining wheels and idlers.
Eventually I wrestled the tracks into place although, as mentioned above, some of the paint flaked off in the process. At least the tracks can be attached with regular styrene cement, meaning I could glue the upper run to the top of the road wheels to get the correct sag. When I come to build the other E-100, I'll add the wheels and tracks before doing any painting. It'll make the painting more fiddly, but at least it will be less stressful to fit them.
I could now add the fenders, and this was tricky too, as I had to do so without damaging the existing paintwork, and the contact points for the fenders aren't particularly positive. A bit of delicate work with some Tamiya extra thin cement eventually got them in place but, again, next time I'll do all this before painting.
Time for the camo and for this I used a pale green mixed from various AMMO shades. I restricted the camo to the fenders and glacis, masking off the upper hull to prevent any over-spray. The pattern here wasn't based on any particular reference, and to some degree you can let your imagination run free when choosing a paint scheme for a subject like this.
The launcher was base coated in Tamiya Hull Red to act as a shade coat, then painted with AMMO Rotbraun. A little Vallejo Warm Grey was added to the Rotbraun for some highlights, and the same paint was used for a light drybrush to bring out the rivet detail.
The blast deflector, and some other areas of the launcher had some chipping applied with a sponge, using a dark brown.
I started the weathering process by adding some scratches and chips over the main hull, first with Dunkelgelb over the green areas, then with the red primer over the whole hull. The areas finished in red primer had scratches painted with the lightened mix of red used on the launcher.
Various enamel washes were used to emphasise the detail, and add shading and grime around some of the panels. You need to keep this fairly subtle on a small scale model like this, to avoid the contrast getting too intense.
AMMO Mud Splashes were used around the rear hull and the fenders. Again, this needs to be kept quite light or the mud would look out of scale. The washes are quite thick and were lightly stippled on with a stiff brush.
To finish off the hull weathering, some dry pigments were scattered over the tracks. These were then fixed in place with an acrylic wash. I'd normally use either pigment fixer or an enamel wash for this, but given the previous issues with the tracks, I didn't want to tempt fate by using something too aggressive.
With the gun shields added to the launcher, the build really started to look the part. The only remaining thing to paint was the missile itself. It's worth noting that the launcher only drops onto a round lug on the hull, and can be a little wobbly and prone to falling over if not glued in place. Probably best to decide what orientation you want it in, and fix it there.
The instructions show a couple of marking options for the missile, but in reality any operation missile would probably have been painted in a single colour and left at that. Why bother camouflaging a high speed, single use surface-to-air missile. But doing that would be boring, wouldn't it, so I camouflaged mine anyway. After a discussion with some modeller friends, I settled on a green splinter scheme as being somewhat plausible. A quick rummage through the spares box sourced some generic stencil decals (actually, from a MiG-15, so don't look too close, as they're in Russian), and these were added to bring a bit of extra detail.
(Thanks to Stephen, Matt, Loyd and Will for the suggestions)
The missile has a couple of wooden transportation panels that can be attached to the rear fins, or you can leave them off if you want it to look launch ready. I chose add them, and gave them some woodgrain texture by rubbing the panels with a course sanding stick.
While I haven't built up the second, V1 packing E-100, I have painted up the flying bomb itself. The marking guide shows a green over grey camo for the V1; a bit boring. The box art however, shows it in a dramatic bright red, and that's what I went with, adding a couple of crosses to the upper wings from the kit's decal sheet.
So, that's the build finished. It's one I've really enjoyed, partly because the kit went together with few problems, and partly because it was such a quick project. Having not built any 1/72 armour in over 30 years, I was amazed at just how sharp and detailed kits in this scale have become. There were a few issues along the way, mainly with the tracks, but some of these were of my own making, and I'll have a better idea of how to approach the next build in this scale.
I can definitely see why this scale is becoming more popular for armour modellers. You can build up an impressive collection without the problems of cost and display space you'd have with 1/35. Modelcollect seem to be at the top of the tree for 1/72 armour, and they've got an impressive, and expanding, range, so there's bound to be something that takes your fancy. I know I'll certainly be doing more in the future.
The walkaround of the Rheintocher w/E-100 Launcher kit...
...And the V-1 w/E-100 Launcher Kit
Lastly, the second E-100 hull in a more undercoat colour and grey launcher platform combo for some variation
Andy Moore
Check out Modelcollect's kits on their website for more info.
Thanks to AMMO for sending Andy the paints to use in this dual build article - you can also get these Modelcollect kits from their website directly
