Markings for My NVA Vehicles - Peddinghaus Comes Through!

Good markings, numbering, and insignia can make or break an modeling or miniature building project. In the past I've created my own decals and markings for projects like the Soviet 1st Mechanized Corps for my lend-lease Soviet army as well as my 502 Schwere Panzer-Abteilung force. It is, however, a fairly tedious process and I hadn't intended to make my own markings for my East German force as Battlefront produced decals (TY014) included in the T-55AM2 kit, and available separately. Unfortunately I've had many issues with my decals cracking and fragmenting, so I went in search of alternatives.

Battlefront Decals - I'd hoped these would work, but have had several issues...

Peddinghaus decals in Germany has a very nice set of numbers and markings for East German vehicles in 1/87 scale which I'd picked up previously, but they're just a bit big for the 15mm (1/100 scale) Battlefront miniatures. I contacted Peddinghaus to see if they could or would run up enough 1/100 versions of the decals to make a go of the overall project, and needless to say, they came through in a BIG way! The photo below shows the original set of markings with numbers in 1/87 at top left, the Battlefront decals at right, and the 1/100 roundels at the bottom.

Hopefully enough decals to finish the project!

The Peddinghaus decals have spectacular detail (see below) and are a little larger than their Battlefront equivalents. They are printed / silkscreened onto a single transparent piece of decal film, so you'll need to trim close to the image to avoid having a lot of extra decal film on your model. However, they separate cleanly from the backing film and adhere to the model with no issues at all!

The Peddinghaus decals are a bit more detailed than Battlefront -

please pardon the limitations of my phone camera!

At this point I've gone ahead and added the national markings to one of my T-72 tanks that is nearing completion. Again, the photo is not doing it justice - I'm still trying to dig out my DSLR camera from the move and will be taking some very detailed photos of the force in the near future.

T-72 Command Vehicle Nearly Ready for Battle!

I honestly can't say enough positive things about my experience with Peddinghaus and these decals so far. The detail is amazing, their turnaround time was very fast, and they were great to deal with. I'll continue to post more in-progress photos over the next few weeks!