¹⁄35

A39 Tortoise

Stage Eleven

Here the commander’s cupola is attached to the fighting compartment, along with the assembly of the two fighting compartment periscopes with their housings, and the 7.92 mm Besa machine gun and mount. This all went together with no particular fuss.

Stage Twelve

At last all the major components are brought together and we get to see just how big this vehicle is. I started by mating the upper hull to the lower, remembering to attach from front to rear as the front of the upper hull sits under the glacis plate fitted in stage seven. The front fits very well, but as you move towards the rear, the fit is not so good and the plastic fights your efforts to get a clean join. This battle left me with a gap of about 1mm, and getting it any closer was impossible without distorting the rear mud guards. The rear plate is a good fit, though you are stuck with the 1mm gap from the rear upper hull. Lastly the armour is added on each side, covering the suspension assemblies; these fit very well, but once fitted, and especially if you elected to make up the full track runs, painting will be a problem. I’d suggest making the lower run of the tracks only, since the top run is invisible; leaving the skirts off is not really an option since the detail that would be revealed, certainly on the idler assembly, is not completely accurate.