Kfz. 305: 3 tonnes of German Trucking

Let's maintain the pace and build the final vehicle kit in the pile. And surprise, it's not a Tamiya kit! This is an Italeri 1/48 kit of the Kfz. 305 3 ton truck, a.k.a the Opel Blitz. We haven't used trucks in our games of Chain of Command yet, so we are planning to give an incentive to field some of them by giving both sides some free trucks. Free trucks! I just had to build one. In worst case it's always useful as terrain.

The Opel Blitz was meant to streamline German logistics at the end of the 30's, as it was riddled with problems from having too many different kinds of vehicles. The Opel Blitz was used by the Germans in all their theatres, with over 70 000 trucks built. Oh, and unlike every other German vehicle it was pretty well built, but suffered from reliability problems in the harsh terrain of the Eastern front because of complicated design. Or wait a minute... 

The first challenge from the kit came in the metal undercarriage. It's really nice and even coated in brown paint, and it ensures that the truck will be very solid. However, it also meant mixing super glue and plastic glue, and making a big mess. However, after a while I had most of it built without too much of a problem.

Notice the real tires! They're in soft rubber and super, super nice.

Next up I built the cabin. Since it's enclosed with transparent windshields I had to paint the interior first before gluing the parts together. I painted everything panzergrau, since it will barely visible anyway. 

Some of the parts didn't fit perfectly in the end, and the paint prevented the glue from forming as good a bond as possible. But I guess it's good enough for now. 

I still have to decide how to finish the kit, as it comes with parts for both a covered and an uncovered truck bed. But it's mostly done, so I'm happy with the evening's work.

-Jonas