The 1/35 Sd.Kfz.251/20 Ausf.D

This is the 1/35 Sd.Kfz.251/20 Ausf.D from AFV Club. The Sd.Kfz. 251 or Sonderkraftfahrzeug 251 aka Hanomag has 4 versions from A to D which produced many variants. It was the most widely used half-tracks (over 15, 000) by the Germans. And with its angled sloping plates, this AFV (Armoured Fighting Vehicle) is very effective against small arms fire and great for transporting troops. When I was small, I thought the American M3 was the better half-track but after seeing this design, I changed my mind. At first I thought it was ugly but slowly, the more I look at it, the more I start to understand why it was designed to be that way.

Unfortunately, it did not change other customer's
minds because they bought all the M3's leaving all
the Sd.Kfz on the shelves. Anyway, I got the 'UHU'
(not the glue) as, well, why not?

This is the main component of the Sd.Kfz UHU variant,
which is basically an infra-red searchlight. It even has
photo-etched parts. So, I got this as there are some
parts that I need and as for the searchlight...

Opening the box, again, you are presented with a lot
of parts for this model.

These are the parts for the searchlight and with so
much parts in there, I was smiling the whole night.
Like all other model kit manufacturers, AFV Club
does the main model, and then add in the variation
parts to the box. This not only help keep their
production costs low but sometimes, for the user,
the unused or extra parts are a bonus.

Alas, this is the half-track's tracks. No individual
tracks here. Then again, I'm not going to build it as
it is because all I need was its searchlight and the
top part of the Sd.Kfz's body.

Not sure what happened here but it looked alright

as the actual part was not affected.

And so, that is the German AFV in WWII, the Sd.Kfz.

And its now headed to the 'to-do' bin... work & family comes first, la.