WWII Soviet Light Tank
Mar 09, 2008
It's quite common among modelers to be drawn to
WWII German Tanks. Not just because of their fame but also
because their technical superiority and design. They are the
paramount of tank development during that period.
But there are some remarkable examples of what
the other countries were doing at the time. The Sherman was one
of them and the T34 was the other. Those are probably the most
famous tanks of the Allies.
And then there was a multitude of other
vehicles, from light tanks to support vehicles, some more
obscure than others, and I mean obscure because they didn't
achieve the same status of the tanks that we all know about.
The T70 was one of them. It equipped the Soviet
Forces in large numbers (more than 8.000) and it got his share
of combat action. Usually on the loosing side, because facing
75mm shells in this tiny tank had a know and very unpleasant
result.
The MiniArt Kit
Before the fall of the Berlin Wall it was very
difficult to have reasonably accurate kits of Soviet military
material. They were based in photos or examples that were in
Western museums but the choice was scarce.
Recently a few Eastern brands began releasing
much more accurate representations of tanks and the best After
Market parts are indeed based in Eastern Countries.
Miniart from Russia makes excellent kits of WWII
Soviet tanks and vehicles but I didn't know exactly how good
they were. I bought this one on my LHS for a reasonable price
and decided to start building it a few days ago (while waiting
for the metal barrel for my Staghound).
I must say I'm quite impressed with the quality
of the kit.
The plastic comes in two shades of grey and the surface
detail is excellent. At first the plastic seems a bit soft, but
I found that's not the case. The plastic has the adequate
consistency with the possible exception of the suspension arms.
However, if they bend out of shape they are easy to "convince"
to go back to the correct position. There are very small parts on the kit and flash
cannot be seen except in a few cases where it is so small that
it's just a matter of a couple of minutes to get rid of it.
The tracks are the individual link variety and the
molding is absolutely fantastic. Building one track is a matter
of patience but that's why I do kits - to relax and erase from
my mind the troubles from everyday work.
I decided to complement this kit with a fine
metal barrel from Aber and the Photo Etch set from Eduard. Those
little things that add credibility to a model, like grids,
handles and all those impossible to do in plastic.
The rest is a matter of work, dedication and
good reference materials.
By chance I found that one issue on
Steel Masters (that I subscribe) has an article on the T70M and
a photo of the tank I'm going to depict. Talk about luck..
Building starts
03-02-2008
This was probably the fastest build I ever did.
In a matter of hours, the hull, turret and fenders were done.
The fenders are from the Eduard set and they
were soldered like all metal should be (eh eh)
After the results I got on the Hetzer with photo etch soldering,
I'll never use ciano again to secure metal to metal.
The only problem with this approach is the type
of language I often use when holding parts heated at 500
Celsius. I tend to forget how hot those metal parts get.
The fenders are by far the most complicated part
on this build, followed by the tracks that need assembling link
by link.
In these photos you can see the fenders already in place, the
grilles for the engine compartment and the stowage set from Blast Models.
I like to give some "life" to my models with the inclusion of
something that gives away human presence. What better than the
bags and boxes that crews used to put on their tank?
This particular tank has a whitewash over the regular
Russian green color of that period.
Only the upper part of the hull is painted white (normally it
was done very crudely at the field) and this is going to be my
premiere in this kind of painting.
If I manage to build those tracks fast enough I guess I'll star
painting this week, so be tuned for further developments
Close to the end
06-02-2008
Tracks done and moving forward to detailing.
The Eduard set has a lot of things that have to be changed or
added to the kit.
One of the things I did was to wrap the exhausts with thin
Tamiya tape strips. I had this image in the back of my mind that
I had seen this somewhere. In fact in some period photos you can
see the exhaust pipes that come out of the engine wrapped in
asbestos. I just couldn't find where I saw a kit built this way.
So I decided to review all my magazines to find that build
article.
I found it on Model Military International and I replicated the
same effect the exact same way. From the photos of the specific
vehicle I'm going to build there are no photos of that detail,
but I don't care. It adds a nice effect to the tank and from the
logical point of view I imagine that it would be something that
the infantry guys riding on the tank would appreciate.
I'm not going to detail the interior. It was very simple and
there was no way that it would end up good enough. The only
parts that are included on the kit are the gun and some parts
for the hatch. Best to build the tank with the hatch closed and
detailed on the outside.
I'm in the finishing phases of detailing just prior to painting.
I guess that I'll have two kits for painting in a couple of
days. Painting is what I like best, so it's nice to do two in a
row.
Close to the end
08-02-2008
All the tiny bits are done. After a couple of nights of work I
just painted it with Tamiya primer and the painting will follow.
That's the part I really enjoy.
On the first photo on the right you can see the wrapping around
the exhaust pipes simulated with thin stripes of Tamiya paper
tape. In the pic the tiny straps that hold the pipes to the
mufflers are not visible but are there ;).
The sag on the tracks was made using the most important tools
for the job - hair dryer and toothpicks.
This weekend the green base coat is going to be applied over
some pre shading. I 'm going to pre shade in spite of applying a
whitewash over it, because I can have second thoughts and I'll
do it anyway. It's a good training anyway.
Painting and weathering
11-02-2008
On the right you can see the result of my efforts in painting my
first whitewashed tank.
The process was not as straight forward as I expected.
First it was painted in Russian green with a clear coat over it.
I was expecting that with some scratches the green could appear
again (like in the real tanks) but what happened was not exactly
as planned.
The white coat and the green coat bonded so well that any
scratch no matter how light would expose the plastic.
Plan B. Dry brushing with green... Amazingly the Plan B worked
better than I expected and the white seems to have faded under
the action of rain and snow.
The worn areas (front hull), turret and fenders were painted
this way. It looks like the the
places where the crew get in and
out of the tank are already exposing the green base coat.
Perfect. Exactly the desired effect.
I've started to apply pigments on the exhausts and the next step
is the oil wash and graphite wear effect in places where the
metal needs to be exposed.
The part that is really terrifying is the mud part. I don't want
to mess the lower hull too much, so I'm training in pieces of
plastic before I decide to do it on the model.
You'll soon see if I messed up big or not...
Pros
-
Good quality plastic. Easy to work on.
-
Nice surface detail. Weld lines well
represented and surface roughness of metal molded on the
plastic
-
Fine detail all-round. Delicate parts are
well molded
-
Individual link tracks are excellent in
detail.
Cons
-
Very basic instructions, although it's not a
very complicated kit.
-
To build a really appealing kit, some AM
photo etch set has to be used increasing the final price a
bit. But this is just me. I like detail at this level.
What will be used in this kit
Aber barrel for T70
Eduard Photo Etch Set 35909
Blast Models Staghound Stowage set
|
