Rubicon Models – StuG III Ausf. G

After covering the Maus and some Sci-Fi reviews, it is time to come back to "regular" tanks, like the StuG III. I covered the Warlord / Italeri one last november, and now I want to share the counterpart by Rubicon Models.

The Sturmgeschütz III Ausführung G, SdKfz 142, is an assault gun based upon the Panzer III chassis. It saw action quite early in 1941 and was used as an tank destroyer, and continuously until the end of war. It was even in service in the Finnish army, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, and Spain. After the war the soviet army donated captured StuG to Syria, who used them until the mid 1960s.

This kit covers the Ausf. G with early, mid and late production variants and offers the StuK 40L/48 with the different muzzle breaks as well as the StuH 42 with 10.5 cm leFH 18 howitzer. It is kept in 28mm / 1:56 scale and is suitable for German Armies and some of the smaller Axis nations. Rubicon Distributors offer this kit for 25 EUR / 20 GBP.

Inside the box you'll find an instruction leaflet, a decal sheet and three properly loaded sprues with some variants and optional parts to build a StuG Ausf. G / StuH 42.

The cast is crisp and clean. The dark grey plastic of Rubicon might still have some remaining release agent left, so it might be a good advice to give it a light scrub with luke warm soap water and a brush prior to priming (this is an advice, that is rather familiar in model building).

As usual the building process starts with the lower hull and the track sections. Rubicon makes use of multiple layers to add more details to the road wheels. As this is a plastic kit, I add wheel weights to the lower body to weigh it down.

After the lower hull is completed, you can add the upper plate to the tank. Please note the Parts C26 and C04 before glueing the upper plate to the hull. And if you want to add the spare road wheels on the rear of the hull, you need to prepare them accordingly as mentioned in the instructions. As this StuG will be used with the 150th Panzerbrigade, I decided against this option.

The Rubicon kit gives you the option to choose from the Saukopf / Topfblende (used from November '43) or the trapezoid mantlet, and different frontal armour choices depending on your production date.

This variation continues with the top plate, gun barrel and muzzle brake. I went with the late production variants. You could easily convert the gun mantlet with a small magnet, to switch between StuK 40 L/48 and StuH 42.

The rear offers variants of the exhaust system and further optional parts. Among them are spare road wheels, a stowage rack for the rear hull, smoke dischargers and of course Schürzen. As mentioned above, this StuG will be in service with the 150th Panzerbrigade, so I left most of the optional parts away.

A comparison of the Rubicon StuG in the middle between the old resin Warlord kit and the Italeri / Warlord cooperation plastic kit.

Last but not least, the view around the StuG from different angles.

Conclusion
This is a very solid kit and logical addition to the range of Rubicon Models. A StuG is such an iconic tank within the german armies, that you can field them everywhere from western to eastern front, in Afrika under Rommels command, with Finns or as captured vehicles in Russian armies.

The different variants and optional parts give the Rubicon kit an advantage over the Italeri kit, that "only" covers the different gun barrels for StuK and StuH, but not much else and not in the depth as this one. As both are similar priced, but you get more with this kit, the recommendation which one to buy is clear.

Link: Rubicon Models