Great dio options here. Imagine a platoon of Germans overrunning a Soviet rail line with several of these cars? Brilliant stuff, MiniArt.

I might get one of these to put with HobbyBoss' MBV-2 that I've got in the stash. Might also serve as a good base for some Russian armored train car conversions/scratchbuilding, though I'm not sure if this is the right car.

Many years back a good buddy of mine Monte Kelch from the Cincinnati area also thought this would be a good idea! (Admittedly he had to start with a Russian-ized German flatcar!)

Looks like it. Think this is captured by Germans, correct me if I'm wrong, not an expert with guns. Edit. Those 88 guns tell the story. They are mounted on a special construction where the gun swing is separate. Images come from the German Bundes Archive. Nice diorama setting. Kind regards, Robert Jan

GREAT reference photo Robert! The flat in the foreground certainly give us much weathering inspiration. Was there more to your final statement? "Gun swing separate from what?" On the German 88 the azimuth was always controlled separately from the elevation.

About the 88, my first reaction, I was thinking this looks like the big guns they installed on 'Tiefladewagen when the Germans invaded Poland Like this: LINK But if you look close to the one with the 88 gun behind the Russian(?)flatbed, it seems this platformwagon is on top of another one? The things showing right, where my focus was, has nothing to do with the wagon, what is interesting is that there is a huge rack behind the 88 gun.. For me to be sure, follow the rails and you see something that holds the platform where the 88 is mounted, a double layer so to speak. All in the back seems to be another type of gun, can't define as I'm not an expert with those big pipes. Kind regards, Robert Jan

Those 150 guns are just brute.

Just for inspiration... Detail Black & White Colorized Two 88 guns on what later became SSyl Ru. Captured Russian 60 Tons flatbeds were reworked in Köln and got the typename SSyl Ru. The picture shows the original Russian 60 Tons flatbed, to identify by the coupling. Watch the bogies also! Kind regards, Robert Jan

Pretty cool. It's been an idea of mine for a while now. The Russians had a number of two axle armored rail cars built during the war. Early on they had mainly 4 axle cars with one or two turrets, but later switched production to two axle rail cars. I think the lesson was that multiple cars were smaller targets, and a single hit no longer had the potential to put two guns out of action. I believe the most common was the OB-3 type There was also a version with T-34 turrets Here's an interesting one of a T-28 turret setup mounted on an armored platform This armored quad maxim mount was also used on two axle railcars Can't tell what type of car it's on in that picture, but scale drawings of the setup are available in a Polish language book on armored trains. The question is, I have no idea if this MiniArt kit is the right flatbed since I have no idea on the standard rolling stock the Russians had. I've got a couple books coming in on Russian Armored trains, so I'm hoping there are some scale drawings I can compare with the kit and see if I got a match.