The Panzer II was a light tank of the German army. Designed and built during the mid to late 1930s, it was a version derived from the Panzer I, with a larger turret and main gun, conceived as a stop-gap measure while the Panzer III and Panzer IV designs made it into production. Nonetheless, it was built in large enough numbers (1856 in total) and was the main battle tank of the German army in the early years of the war, seeing action all the way to North Africa. It was armed with a 20mm main gun, and a 7.9mm MG34. Its crew consisted of three men. A driver on the left side, a radio operator/loader sitting behind him, and a commander sitting in the turret, who also aimed and fired the two guns. The front armor was initially 14-15mm, but later models Ausf D/E and F had 30mm and 35mm of front armor respectively. Even then, that was not sufficient to survive against contemporary anti-tank guns with armor-piercing shells. The tank was powered by a 138hp engine, which gave it a maximum speed of 25mph. Its range on-road was 120 miles, and off-road it was 78 miles. It was initially phased out by the Panzer 38(t) and later by the Panzer III and Panzer IV medium tanks which had more powerful main guns, and thicker armor. Its chassis lived on as part of tank destroyers like the Marder II and the Wespe.
Eagle Design 1/30 Panzer II Ausf F
I am not aware of any Panzer IIs from 21C or FOV, so it was a nice surprise when I ran into this model from Eagle Design. The scale is supposed to be 1/30, but it fits really well with 1/32, I guess because the tank itself was relatively small in reality. Eagle Design, built it quite sturdily, and it feels like it is all made out of metal. Even the tracks -although that also means that the tracks do not move. All else, the turret, guns, antenna, hatch, have nice degrees of movement. The price was a bit steep though, so I won't be trying to assemble a platoon of them any time soon.
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