¹⁄35

Soviet KV-1S Heavy Tank

Stage Two continues for the most part to work on the suspension of the tank adding the swing arms for the road wheels, the adjuster and swing arm for the idler wheel, return rollers, bell housing for the drive, and a number of hull components, as with the previous stage this is also realistically two stages rather than one.

Starting with the swing arms for the road wheels, these locate via hexagon which locates into a hexagonal hole and which is a very tight fit (not always a bad thing). When located the arms align perfectly both in relation to the ground and along the hull, however it also means that if you wish to display your model on an uneven surface some surgery will be required. Some of the arms do have very minor mould seams but nothing compared to Trumpeters earlier kits of the KV tank. Please take note of the position of the end caps (Part WA16) as there is a correct orientation of the bolt holes shown in the pictures and you can use the bolts on the hull side panels as a guide to alignment.

The drivers armoured viewing slot was tackled next and a small amount of surgery is needed to reduce the width of the locating face, In order to keep it central I removed a small amount of material off of both sides before locating the part. Moving onto one of my biggest bug bares with Trumpeters kits the vents on the engine deck; I can forgive Trumpeter using plastic parts on the cheaper kits but with the price of this model I really would have thought they would have included shaped photo etched parts for this area of the model or at the very least photo etched parts for manipulation buy the modeller. This is especially true as they have included louvered vents under these pieces. The three hull hatches are also attached at this stage and I have taken another picture of the ejector pin marks on the inner face which is a shame considering the added detail on the inside of the hatch.