Does anybody know what is this rod for? It blocks the hatch from openning greater than 90 degrees! And in the Tamiya kit, this rod is not present but its anchors are modelled into their kit!

Hi Pierre,

First of all, I am no expert in Russian/USSR armours but I found this picture on Primeportal and have a guess. The rod you mentioned should be used as a spring (torsion) control of the base of the round hatch (I guess the round hatch could be open separately). The rod is divided into two sides, one for the right hatch and one for the left. Each side could be opened separately. Cheers.

Paul

As Paul has said, these are torsion bars - like those of the suspension, but smaller- to aid opening the big -and so very heavy- turret hatches.

Here is aphoto of my Trumpeter IS-3m model were you can see the wole configuration:



By the way: Tamiya made a very early IS-3. It´s Trumpeter who has the modernised IS-3m. I only mentioned it for if you want to model a later vehicle, as the Tamiya kit OOB only lends itself to the small batch of vehicles built just before the end of WWII like those in the Berlin Victory parade. From then on IS-3 tanks suffered a series of upgrades till the IS-3m configuration.

Hope this helps

Pierre,

As Cesar says, the Tamiya kit (while generally a decent kit) will need updating unless you're set on modelling one of those very early IS-3s.

The kit's most striking omission is the lack of stowage bin doors on the sides of the hull (only the very early IS-3s didn't have these).

I think I'm right in saying that the fenders may also need addressing, depending on which version you wish to build (resident Soviet experts - over to you for more on that).

You could probably do these yourself with plastic sheet. But if (like me) you're either too lazy and / or not a skilled scratch-builder, there are two update sets from Eduard (35036 and 35042) that will take care of this, and also provide you with some other photo-etched bits & bobs for your IS-3.

Set 35042 is the one specifically for the fenders and bin hatches.

- Steve

Thanks gentlemen, good info as usual!

DO WE AGREE THAT THIS PROFESSIONAL PLAN DRAWING IS DEFINITELY WRONG ?

Yes, that seems to be wrong. The end of the torsion rod should go through a "ring" welded to the side of the hatch to make the torsion work. See pic below.



Paul

Thanks !