Baltic Barbarossa

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The recent spurt in 1:72 scale armour modelling over the past few years has been pushed along by all the releases coming out of eastern Europe. The Ukrainian firm UM (Unimodels) has had a fairly steady outpouring of models over the past few years, so I thought I would take a look at a couple of their recent kits. While they are not up to the standards of industry leaders like Revell and Dragon, they are respectable kits for modellers willing to put in a little extra work.

German Pz.Kpfw.38(t)

I was prompted to start this diorama by the arrival of UM's new Pz.Kpfw.38(t) kit. I wanted to incorporate it into a small, two vehicle diorama, and I had originally planned to do it in a Battle of France mini-diorama. However, there's not much available in plastic in French 1:72 scale armour, so I turned my attention east and decided to do a tank from Operation Barbarossa.

The 38(t) looks good in the box, which is never good enough for a real assessment. My main concern about any riveted tank is how the manufacturer deals with the problem of the joints between plates. Bevelled edges offer the promise of the rivet detail remaining usable. But in the case of kits where the plates come together in butt joints, the modeller is faced with the dilemma of accepting the inaccurate representation of the rivets or stripping off the rivets and adding new ones. Needless to say, the prospect of having to replace a lot of small rivets does not make most modellers very happy! The UM kit, sad to say, uses butt joints. I decided to replace rivets where I had to do so, and to try to avoid replacing them elsewhere such as on the hull.

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The turret is the main source of trouble due to the poor fit of the main components. The rivets are hard to redeem since the gaps between the parts are substantial enough that some filling is necessary. So I decided to bite the bullet and replace all the rivets on the turret. To make matters worse, UM's depiction of the turret is sloppy. The turret bustle should be elevated off the turret/hull roof by a few inches, not be flush, and there should be a bullet splash ring around the turret. The easiest way around both problems would simply be to cut a new bullet splash ring slightly wider than the turret diameter, and glue the turret to it. I decided to use a more accurate, but more difficult, approach of raising the turret with a new circular extension underneath, and then adding a ring around it.

To add rivets to the turret, I used a Waldron sub-micro punch and die, using the smallest size (017 thou) punch. The resulting rivets are a bit large, and after catching some flak on this issue on the Missing Lynx Website, I've subsequently come up with another technique for making smaller rivets. But the punch and die does result in consistent rivets and doesn't look too bad.

The hull proved to be less troublesome, though not entirely free of problems. The kit has been designed to be suitable for several variants of the Pz.Kpfw.38(t) and on this model, the Ausf C, has the stepped front plate with the bulged area on the driver's side. The kit does not show that the driver's hatch should extend into this bulge, but this was a moot point as far as I was concerned as I intended to open up the hatch anyway. The depiction of the radio pot next to the hatch is a bit sloppy, so I rebuilt this area while opening the hatch. Extratech released a photo-etch set for the older Attack kit of the Pz.Kpfw.38(t), which is useful as well for the UM kit as it provides several nice items such as the engine grating, the side tool box and some other small details. So while working on the hull, I opened up the rear grating in order to use the PE part.

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The suspension is fairly straightforward, though I did use the Extra-tech PE parts for the front of the drive sprocket and idler. The track is a bit thick, but being hard plastic, it can be improved with some careful trimming. After getting the track on the model, I used my Dremel Mini-mite power tool and some small cutting burrs to open up the guide horns a bit, and to thin out the edge of each track. While this is delicate and tedious work, it substantially improves the overall appearance of the suspension. I added a fair amount of new detail to the model especially tools; Extratech jerrycans, and other stowage such as the helmets on the turret. The UM kit builds up into a tiny and attractive model, but not without a fair amount of detail work.

Soviet BT-7A

I have always wanted to build a BT-7A artillery tank, so this diorama gave me a good excuse to do so. UM produces a variety of BT kits, and so I got their BT-7A. I was very disappointed by the turret which is much too small both in diameter and in height. Sadly, I have yet to find an entirely dependable set of scale plans of this variant, but I relied on a combination of several recent Russian books, magazine articles, and the old Mark 1 eyeball to try to get the dimensions more reasonable. This involved adding about .030 thou in height and then wrapping the turret in some .020 thou sheet to increase the turret diameter. While I was fiddling with the basic turret shape, I began tackling the hull.

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The UM BT series is one of their older productions, and the level of detail is adequate, but not wonderful. Fortunately, Part Models from Poland has released several photo-etch sets including an excellent PE track set as well as a detail set intended for the BT-7 series. I used both, and they added immeasurably to the final appearance of the model. To best use the PE parts for the upper engine deck, it's necessary to open up the area over the fan where the large screened frame sits, as well as the two cooling openings on either side of the engine. The kit hull roof part is thick with little detail, so I decided it would be easier to simply replace it with sheet plastic which is easier to cut. The hull requires some careful assembly to get the parts to line up, but fortunately there are few rivets to worry about which makes clean-up easier than in the case of the Pz.Kpfw.38(t). The suspension is fairly straight-forward and I made sure it was firmly in place before adding the Part PE tracks. These tracks are very delicate, but it's a good idea to have a Hold & Fold or Etch-mate PE bending tool when working with these tracks as it makes their folding and assembly much easier and neater.

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I replaced the side fenders with sheet plastic as the kit examples are very thick. I replaced the kit exterior fuel cells with those from the Dragon T-34 Model 1940, which have better detail. Much of the detail on the engine deck comes from the Extratech PE set, notably the screened cover and the cover over the engine radiators.

Once I had the turret dimensions straightened out, I began detailing the turret. This took a fair amount of work, though I managed to salvage a fair number of components from the kit turret such as the gun assembly and commander's hatch assembly. I rebuilt the side machine gun housing as the kit part is woefully undersize. Like the 38(t) kit, the UM BT-7A provides a good basis for a model, but it requires patient work to bring up the detail to the standards of better con-temporary kits. I must say that I really enjoy these kinds of projects more than 'shake-and-bake' kits, but the level of work needed on this kit may not be to all modellers' tastes.

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Painting the tanks

Neither tank presented any particular problems in the finishing as they both carry rather dull and simple colour schemes. For the BT-7A, I used Tamiya Field Grey XF65 which, contrary to its name, is actually a dull green. I used Tamiya RLM Grey XF22 on the Pz.Kpfw.38 (t) as full-strength dark panzer grey would be much too dark on such a small model. The suspensions on both tanks were finished much the same. I airbrushed them in Tamiya JSDF Brown XF72, then airbrushed the exposed portions of the wheels and track in Buff XF57, leaving the recesses in the darker earth shade. I wafted some of the Buff on to the upper surfaces to represent dust.

On the Pz.Kpfw.38(t), I used Archer dry transfers for the turret numbers, and once in place, I lightly sprayed the tank in a glaze made from Tamiya Thinner X20A, Clear X22 and a little Buff XF57 to provide a dust coasting to the markings and seal them before the wash. I applied a wash to both models using Winsor & Newton Raw Umber oil paint in a mineral spirit solution, applying a thicker mixture on the suspension, and a lighter mixture on the upper surface. I also went back with a slightly darker mixture with some black added to do some pin washes around key details.

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Once the wash was dry, I did a bit of dry-brushing to pop-out details. 'Dry-brushing' is, perhaps, a bit of an over-simplification of my final detail painting on small scale models. While I do use something like traditional dry-brushing on some details such as plate edges, most of the detail painting is actually closer to the style of accenting and lining used for painting figures. This involves mixing up an enamel paint close in colour to the base colour being accented, then adding a bit of white or black and using this base colour. It can then be applied and blended to accent small details. So, in the case of the 38(t), this means starting with some Humbrol Grey, and then adding lighter or darker oil paint to create an accent colour. For example on the turret periscopes, a darker shade can be used to accent the undersides, while a lighter shade can be used to accent the upper sides. This can be applied as a semi-transparent wash with mineral spirits as the thinner, since it is easier to blend into the surrounding areas than an opaque paint. This takes trial and practice, but it serves to make the detail of such a small model pop out better than if using more traditional painting methods alone.

The Diorama

I wanted to put both tanks in a mini-diorama to give it a flavour of time and place. There are innumerable photos of German panzer columns moving down dusty Russian roads with abandoned equipment by the roadside, and so I decided to depict such a scene here.

To separate the models visually, I decided on a wedge-shape diorama with the 38(t) on a road slightly elevated over the BT-7A. I used a simple 4in x 6in plastic box intended for photo display as the base, airbrushed in semi-gloss black. I epoxied a block of balsa foam on top and shaped it using a Makita hand rotary sander. Balsa foam is very crumbly and gritty so I did this work outside wearing a mask. Once I had created the basic shape, I coated the balsa foam with acrylic gel to seal and harden it. The terrain surface was made from Apoxie Sculpt epoxy putty for hardness and stability.

The small Russian peasant izba is from the Musket Miniatures wargame resin series and in fact the diorama only include a portion of the cottage. To depict the damaged roof, I added dishevelled thatch from some Hudson & Allen tall grass. Once I painted the base in Tamiya JSDF Brown XF72 with patches of lighter Buff XF57, I applied a wash of Raw Umber oil paint in a mineral spirit (white spirit) solution, and then dry-brushed it once dry. The terrain comes mainly from Heki grass mats, mixed in with a little Siflor terrain material for variety. The tree is made from seafoam weed with Noch 'lime leaves' attached with 3M photo adhesive and then fixed in place using hair spray. These tree materials are sold as a kit called 'Super Trees' by Scenic Express in the United States for railroad scenery, though the basic components, or similar, are no doubt available in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe at model railroad shops.

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Figures

The figures on the diorama are all from the excellent Preiser 1:72 scale range. Preiser has several sets of panzer crew and infantry, and they are somewhat like the old Airfix 'Multi-pose' in that the component arms, torsos, heads and gear can be interchanged. The latest sets have separate heads and helmets along with separate infantry gear. The two standing infantrymen in the diorama needed the most attention, mainly because it takes careful work to get the infantry gear to sit properly. If simply glued on, it looks much too large, and so the various bits have to be trimmed and filed to adopt a more natural appearance. Both tank crew figures are from the panzer crew set. The figures were all painted with Vallejo acrylics.

Once again, this mini-diorama accents how it is possible to create an interesting little scene on a base hardly large enough to accommodate the smallest of 1:35 scale AFVs.

First published in Military Modelling Vol.35 No.13 2005