Kicking up a Rakete - part 1

Regular readers will be aware that I have of late been scouring the planet for vehicles in 1/48ish scale for my Little Cold Wars project.  In the course of this search I noticed a small range of Tamiya models in just this scale.  The range included a Jagdpanzer Kanone - just the thing for my West Germans.  I expected a fairly basic kit but when the thing arrived (a little over £10 including shipping from the Far East) it emerged from the box in the condition you see below.

This is an image from the Tamiya website but I can assure you that my Kanone looks identical.  Being a motorised model the tracks are a little chunky but that aside it's a lovely thing.  In term of scale it works out nearer to 1/40 but I can live with that.

It soon occurred to me (as it had to the 1960s Bundeswehr) that a 90mm gun is all very well but what if these new-fangled guided missiles catch on?  Their solution was the Jagdpanzer Rakete with the 'kanone' replaced by er, 'raketes...'  SS-11 to be precise.

I decided to copy those clever Germans and another model was soon on order.

When it arrived I set to work removing the gun and it's mantlet.  I had expected this to involve a great deal of razor saw action but the gun assembly turned out to be a separate part which was easily(ish) prised off.

Missiles were aircraft weapons sourced from the spares box.  The periscopes and bow MG (not fitted to all such vehicles) were adapted from 1/76 scale truck axles.  So far so good.  I'd better paint the thing.

Sorry about the title.  OK so the spelling is different but it was too good to ignore.  Musical link here.