Marder III Ausf. H, Sd.Kfz. 138 – A Plastic Soldier Company Review
By Tom Burgess
One of my major projects that I completed in 2019 was building an all-plastic German Mid-War East Front Panzer Grenadier force. And of course, what Mid-War German force can you have without Marders backing it up?
Unfortunately, Battlefront (BF) only offers the Marder III in one version and in metal resin. Luckily the Plastic Soldier Company Panzer 38(t) kit has the option to build two Marder variants. So I ordered a box from my local game store, Hard Knox Games, to add to my force.
The Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) kit allows for the build either a PzKw-38(t) tank, Sdkfz 139 Marder III, or the SdKfz 238 Marder III Ausf H. I really wanted my Marders to stand out from the BF Sdkfz 139 Marder III models, which I already had in my Afrika Korps force. So I chose to build my PSC Marders as the SdKfz 138 Marder III Ausf H variant.
The PSC Panzer 38(t) boxed set is $29.99 (US) and comes with five model sprues. I gave my fifth sprue to my friend Ed as I only needed four vehicles for Mid-War German Marder Tank-Hunter platoon.
The PSC kit is well molded and easy to build. It comes with seven crew members for each sprue, though two will only be usable if building PzKw-38(t) tank.
One of the crew figures in the kit had an overly long right arm (see figure above on the right). No problem. I just cut the hand off, shortened the arm and reattached the hand to make the crewman look more normal (see left figure).
The rest of the crew figures were fine. One of the figures came with a base. I suppose the intent is for this figure to be standing outside of the Marder while passing up rounds to the loader.
I was really worried about how I was going to paint the gun with the gun shield on. So I left the mount and the shield loose and assembled them after painting.
I really like look of the SdKfz 138 Marder III Ausf H. It’s a version that you rarely see on the table top.
The assembled SdKfz 138 Marder III Ausf H without crew.
The crew of the SdKfz 138 Marder III Ausf H really would be standing inside the crew compartment of the 38(t) hull rater than kneeling on the deck as shown here. But I wanted the crew to be visible and the space in the hull was too tight. So I just used the SdKfz 139 Marder III kneeling crew figures.
Above are all four SdKfz 138 Marder III Ausf H’s assembled and ready for painting.
The finally completed SdKfz 138 Marder III Ausf H models are above. I’m not certain about the paint scheme. By the time the SdKfz 138 Marder III Ausf H was showing up on the east front, I think that many, if not all would be painted with a Dunkelgleb base coat. But I wanted these to “fit in” with some SdKfz 251/C’s I was also working on.
I highly recommend this PSC model. It is easy to build, fun, and cheap. At $29.99 (US) for five vehicles, they are much cheaper than BF’s resin and metal GBX110 Marder (7.62cm) Tank-hunter Platoon at $47.00(US). You will however need to get the unit card for the PSC kit if you intend to use them in Flames of War game.
The models used in this review were not provided by the Plastic Soldier Company.