Stug III frontal applique armor made from recycled parts : 1) rectangular slabs cut from 1.35th TAMIYA King Tiger hull, 2) bolt tips removed from 1.35th TAMIYA Tiger I sprocket teeth. Notek night driving light on frontal glacis below gun taken from 1.35th NICHIMO SdKfz 250 halftrack, its pedestal cut from 1.48th airplane landing gear part. White parallelogram with Arrow was German tactical sign for tracked assault gun vehicle.

Notek (concatenation of manufacturer name Nova Technik) light cast a light beam directly to ground rather than horizontally, thus concealed night movement. Notek head light - sdkfz7.free.fr/enoteksdkfz11.htm

Inset 1 : Proud Stug III kommandeur posing with his gun barrel Kill Rings indicating number of achieved armor victories. Notek light missing on frontal glacis, spare tracks draped for additional protection, and horse shoe on left fender presumably for good luck charm. Kill Rings were regularly painted by armor crews up until 1944 when dire battlefront situation made this effort superfluous. Besides, by late-1944, average tank operational expectancy from factory rollout to frontline deployment to ultimate destruction was about 4 weeks. Horse Shoe Charm - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe

Rollover : ( Rollover JPG link ) Kill Ring marking from spare 1.35th armor decal, armor plate edges on Fahrersehklappe ( driver visor) were clipped by XACTO knife to mimic wear-and-tear. Replaced Stug III gun barrel with 1.35th TAMIYA King Tiger kit since it was closer to relative size. Stug III armed with 7.5cm StuK40 L/48 gun in limited transverse and elevation mount. Thus, entire vehicle need to be repositioned for direct firing. Gun can fire warheads of High Explosives (HE) against soft targets (ex. armor car, enemy infantry, buildings) or Armor Piercing (AP) against tanks. If HE round was used against a heavily armored target, it would barely make a dent and only scratch the paint. If AP rounds were used on non-armor targets, high-velocity round could penetrate entire target without detonation. Shaped Charge Anti-Tank - www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/bullets2-shaped-charge.htm

Inset 2 : Stug III ausf G in Ukraine steppes region, hull brackets for shurzen mounting, Soviet POW crouched in front prepared for escort to rear collection station. These Soviet POW had dire consequences, given draconian conduct of Soviet regime, many Soviet POW volunteered for German service as Hiwi (abbreviation for Hilfswilliger or Voluntary Assistant by German noted they were exceptionally loyalty and reliable all the way towards final WW2 reckoning. Most famous Hiwi formation was pro-German Russian Liberation Army under General Andrey Vlasov. Russian Liberation Army - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlasov_army

For Soviet POW who languished in German prison camps, they were used as slave labor from menial work to assembling advanced V-2 rockets. Upon WW2 end, Soviet Union leader Stalin condemned all his POW for failure to defend motherland to the death, hence had them all shipped to Soviet labor camps better known in the West as Gulags (basically, Stalin needed raw manpower to rebuilt war-ravaged country, hence impressed both German POW and Soviet ex-POW into this venture). Gulag - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

• Additional info : The Soviet Gulag Era in Pictures 1927 through 1953 - www.okay.com/dunc/gulag.htm

Nevertheless, there were some Soviet POW incidents worthy to note. One story in 1945 as US forces advanced on German Rhur industrial region, some 30,000 Soviet POW rioted, broke out of prison, and perpetrated mass looting and rapes upon local populace. Despite being Allies, US forces killed a number of Soviet POW in forcing them back into prison perimeter, US commander on ground actually apologized to German counterpart for mob behavior of Soviet personnel. Another story in 1945 was Soviet POW slave labor used on V-2 rocket assembly in Nordhausen-Germany. Tired of years of German abuse, a group of Soviet POW openly urinated on a V-2 rocket motor during assembly, whereupon they were executed by SS guards for sabotage, but this does denote good example of Slavic culture's "Kiss My Ass" attitude. V-2 rocket - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket

Inset 3 : Stug III gun armament came in 2 versions, common one was 7.5cm StuKannone 40 L/48 gun for anti-tank engagements, second one was 10.5cm StuHaubitze 42 L/28 howitzer shown below (note smaller sized artillery shells stacked on hull). Howitzer is high-angled infantry-support artillery, but given Stug howitzer direct line of fire, it delivered high-explosive warheads against close proximity buildings, pillboxes, and earthen fortifications. Howitzer - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howitzer