Hi all

this is the UM Kit, of the Schwere Spahwagen (Heavy Scout Car) for rail use.

These were in combat operations from late 1944 in the Balkans.

Being late war, there are not a lot of photos of these, and all are black and white, and seem to indicate they were painted overall in german yellow, similar to how many panzers were painted. This makes for a simple paintjob, but its how they were. They also seemed to have no markings. Some that survived the war may have had markings added after the war.

The kit was pretty straightforward, is built out of the box, except for wire rungs added on the body sides and the turret roof, as the kit comes with moulded on lugs that don't look good.

The turret needed a bit of sanding to get the roof to fit well.

A bit of filling and sanding were needed on some of the joins on the hull.

It doesn't come with any figures I put one on some of the pictures to give a scale perspective as to its size. It does come with the rail rack its photographed on.

I intend to put make a small diorama/vignette to put this one on.

cheers
Neil

Very nice!

I was looking at buying one of these kits. Your build has convinced me to do so!

Hi Mike

Thanks !

I don't know if stores in your part of the country stock this brand, but none do in my region, its online ordering only.

Mine arrived with a moulding flaw on the right hand side of the body. It was easy to fill so was no big deal, but there are pictures on another site of someone else's kit that arrived with very bad moulding over large areas of the lower hull and upper hull panels.

He contacted the manufacturer who has agreed to replace the sprue, after some initial language barriers were overcome.

So if buying in person, maybe check the kit contents first

Usually this manufacturer has good quality kits, maybe this was a one off problem

you can see the flaw in the below picture, before I filled it



cheers
Neil

And another railroad centered build! I've never seen anything like this in our local shops. The finish looks very good. Does this kit have any markings?

Regards,
AJ

Hi AJ

I like the armoured railway subjects as much as tracked or wheeled armoured vehicles, and they make a nice change.

nothing like this is for sale in shops in my part of the world either, so I order these online.

The kit comes with a set of solid balkan crosses without outlines (similar to those used on panzers) , in black and white. Wartime pictures of these are uncommon, those that can be found show no markings. There are photos of one taken post war with balkan crosses the same as supplied with the kit, but its possible these were added after the war.

cheers
Neil

Neil,

Wow! How could I have missed this one, especially because I like the rail-car wars series from UM. Didn't even know they had this one? Looks like you've done an excellent job with yours. I like the close up photos. Nice touch with the figure to give us an idea of the actually size on the real rail-car.

-Eddy

Hi Neil,

Nicely finished model, the weathering is especially fine.Interesting model, I noticed that the cupola has open vision slits, did you do that or is that the actual casting. If it is the casting, it is the only kit I know of with this, as all other manufacturers have them closed. The model looks more convincing with the slits open, If UM can do it why can't anyone else?

After reading this, I decided to check my kit and it too has some molding failures on lower hull part, mostly on those ventilation fans. Looks like the plastic has melted somehow on certain spots...
Just two options left: either repair it or dump the kit deeper to my stash...

Hi Eddy

thanks for your comment, I'm a fan of military railcars too, I hope UM and UMmt keep releasing new subjects

Hi Paul

I'm glad you like the weathering. The streaks were quite easy, I wet the whole model down with water, then diluted some water based acrylic modelling paint (Aqueous HobBY Color brand)and brushed some thin streaks downwards with an 00 brush.

I'm not a panzer expert (actually I'm not expert at any topic ) so didnt even notice the cupola has open vision slits, the cupola has not been modified by me, just highlighted with a diluted light oil paint wash (before the above streaking was done) which highlighted the vision ports.

Hi Kimmo

I have emailed the other guy who had the badly moulded lower hull, to see if UM has sent him a replacement sprue yet. I'll post again here with details to let you know. His emails in english got him no luck, but he had his email translated into russian (or maybe ukrainian ?) and then got a reply.

I'm hoping you dont have to trash or permanently stash the kit , I'll see what I can find out, or ask the other guy to post here too.

cheers & kind regards to all
Neil

Hi Neill!
Thanks for your help so far. I keep the kit in my stash but most likely building it will happen some day in future. I was planning to build it as a part of "Braille Battlefield" campaign but I may have to change my plans to something trouble free kit with faster finishing.

BTW: have you noticed two new armored railroad kits from UM? There´s one russian and one german kit out now. Atleast Jadar-Hobby in Poland have them in stock.

Here´s latest update from M-L forums, conserning bad mould failures on UM Heavy Scout car:
Heavy Scout car

Seems story got unhappy ending from modelers point of view.. If you look pics on the other link, which writer has included inside his message, you can see why he is pissed. I bought the same kit from Jadar-Hobby and I had the same moulding failures on lower hull part. Wasn´t very happy back then but I decided to repair that part and build this kit as a part of "Braille Battlefield" campaign. Let´s see how this ends up...

This one turned out great ! It looks like the real 1/1.

Hello Neil,

Nice build it will certainly fit very well in a railroad dio.

I 'd like to add that I very much liked the soldier figure too. What brand is it? Can you show others photos from it ?

As for the flaws, all the manufacturers have mailed me extra sprues all the times I have found serious flaws in kits.
P.A.

Just want to say thanks to Neil and Kimmo for their heads up on these faulty moulded kits. As I mention in another post, the local shop just got two in and thanks to you both I asked to check inside the boxes. Both showed similar flaws to what were described. Maybe if they put them on sale super cheap I'd get one and try to fix it, but at almost $20 with taxes there is no way.

Regards,
AJ