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The Schwimmwagen was an amphibian & this little swimming car made it to many fronts in World War Two. It was good at its job too, serving as a go-anywhere liaison & recce car able to cross waterways.
In Russia, especially, its swimming abilities came in very handy in a country criss-crossed with waterways.
Tamiya’s 1:35th scale Schwimmwagen Type 166 found its way onto our workbench some years ago.
Initially it was supposed to be a secondary vehicle on a Normandy diorama. Hence, why it still isn’t quite 100% complete. There’s the odd repair needed here & there. But one day, it will finally take its pride of place in that planned diorama.
The build was stereotypical for the famous Shizuoka-based firm. A real pleasure. Fast, easy & hassle-free. We chose not to go for any upgrade sets or etched brass extras – contenting ourselves with an out-of-the-box build. In fact, this model was to serve primarily as a testbed, so there was no need to go overboard.
In effect, the “Schwimm” was the first time we tried Lifecolor Acrylic’s paint range. This was some years ago, before the excellent paint range was well-known over here in England.
A trip to a French model shop opened our eyes to the paints & so we snapped up the basic colours for a German vehicle & got spraying. The basecoat was UA084 – German Desert Yellow, UA083 – German Tank Medium Green for the green camo bands & UA082 German Tank Brown for the others.
Well, we never looked back from that day. We were so impressed with how the paints behaved when just diluted with simple water, that we have continued to use Lifecolor’s paints ever since. And we would recommend them to you too!
After the very enjoyable painting & decaling stage was complete, that left us to enjoy kitting out the interior of the vehicle with parts & accessories from the spares box – always the most fun part of any build! Weapons, some food items & other bits & pieces were loaded into the Schwimmwagen ready for its next voyage.
Basecol
