Eastern Suburbs Scale Modelling Club

.: Nick Schwanck 1/35th Dragon Sd.Kfz. 251 Ausf. C

The Sonderkraftfahrzeug 251 (SdKfz 251) half-track was an armored fighting vehicle designed and first built by Nazi Germany's Hanomag company during World War II. They were produced throughout the war.

The early production models of this vehicle were issued to the 1st Panzer Division in 1939. There were four main models (A - D), with many variants. The initial idea was for a vehicle that could be used to transport a squad of infantry to the battlefield protected from enemy small arms fire, and with some protection from artillery fire. The open top meant that the crew was still vulnerable, especially to high explosive rounds and shell fragments.

The first two models were produced in small numbers. The C variant had a larger production run, but was a quite complex vehicle to build, involving many angled plates that gave reasonable protection from small arms fire. The D version utilized a much simpler design, and can be easily recognised by its single piece sloping rear (with flat doors).

Although designed for cross country work, it had some limitations as the front wheels were not powered.

The standard personnel carrier version Sdkfz 251/1 was equipped with a 7.92 mm MG34 or MG42 machine gun mounted at the front of the open compartment, above and behind the driver. A second machine gun was usually mounted at the rear on an anti-aircraft mount.

These vehicles were meant to enable panzergrenadiers to accompany panzers and provide infantry support as required. In practice, there were never enough of them to go around, and many panzergrenadier units had to make do with trucks for transport. Only favored divisions like Panzer Lehr received enough to fully equip their infantry units.

There were 23 official variants, and sundry unofficial variants. Each variant is identified by a suffix to the model number. There was however some overlap in the variant numbers.

Variants were produced for specialized purposes, including with anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank rockets (triple Panzerschrecks fitted on either side of the vehicle) as well as a version with an infra-red search light used to spot potential targets for associated Panther tanks equipped with infrared detectors.

Sd. Kfz. 251/2 Ausf. C
After the conquest of France in 1940, Germany felt the need for a mobile mount for their Wurfgerät 40 rockets, and the Sd.Kfz. 251 was selected. The resulting Sd.Kfz. 251 Wurfrahmen 40 had three rocket projectors mounted on each side of the halftrack’s hull. Each of the launching frames could be traversed from +5° to +40°.
This vehicle gave panzerpionier units a heavy bombardment capability.

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