I've always found armoured trains to be interesting, none more so than the BP42/44 armoured trains.
They have a size, shape, & symmetry that I think is very appealing to the eye. The familiar 20mm flaks, T-38 tanks, artillery turrets, and on the later models the Panzer IV turret cars, add a lot of visual interest to these armoured anachronisms.
Bief History
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(I've distilled this info from Schiffer's and Sawodny's books on the subject)
The Russians had many armoured trains when the war started. Most were destroyed or captured by the Germans in the first couple of years of fighting on the eastern front. As the Russians recovered from their losses and began to go on the offensive, they backed away from armoured train production, as no longer neccessary. As the Germans sought to maintain control of the large areas they had captured by 1942, they saw armoured trains as part of the solution of to protecting and patrolling large areas. As Germany lost the initiative in the east and went increasingly on the defensive, armoured trains were seen as being increasingly useful for defence and security. These trains were also used at times in limited offensive operations, with varying results.
Germany had finished track conversion in captured territories in the east from Broad to Standard gauge by August 1942 including to Kharkov. The first BP-42 trains came into operation in the last months of 1942, and were built as Standard gauge.
The title "42" and "44" in BP42/44 refers to the year that the design was agreed on and implemented. The makeup and design of the BP-42 train was based on experience with captured russian and polish designs, which the germans had used, and improved on.
BP-42 was the name of the design that was decided on, with a locomotive in the middle, and a symmetrical makeup of various armoured wagons in front of and behind, the locomotive.
The first six BP-42 trains were in service before the end of 1942, two being allocated to each of Army Groups, North, Centre and South. The first six BP-42 trains were numbered 61 to 66.
The BP-44 was an enhanced design of the BP-42, (introduced in 1944) with very few changes to the original BP-42 design, the main change being the addition of a Panzerjager wagon with a Panzer IV turret mounted on it, at each end of the train, to give the train better defence against tank attack. The first documented BP-44 was train number 73.
The trains were manufactured at the Linke-Hoffman works in Breslau. Once Breslau was encircled in February 1945, manufacture of the trains ceased.
The BP42/44 trains were in use right up till the end of the war, with around 20 complete trains built (its unclear exactly how many were completed in the last few months of the war). They were used all over the eastern front except for the Balkans. They were tried there, but were found to be unsuitable, as those areas had 'light rail' meaning railway lines engineered not to take the weight of heavy trains.
At least one train was also operational in France. As the german forces retreated, all were lost, being captured, destroyed in action, scuttled and/or abandoned by their crew, a small number of trains were still being used in defence of Germany near Zossen, and in Austria at war's end.
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Armageddon 1/72nd scale BP-44 armoured train
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Armageddon's is the only kit on the market in 1/72nd of this train.
It consists of a half train made up of a Locomotive, Tender, Geschutzwagen, Kommandowagen, Artillerywagen, Panzertragerwagen, & Panzerjagerwagen. A completion set consisting of all the above, minus the Locomotive can also be bought separately. I bought both kits to make the full train. The kit comes with some figures, a T-38 tank for each Panzertragerwagen, instruction sheets, decal sheet, and a roll of copper wire.
If you do a search for builds and comments on this kit, two things stand out - firstly that it can be built into an impressive looking model, as a few completed build pics found on the web show, and secondly that getting it built, even straight from the box is reputed to be a difficult task.
I could not find enough detail of what the issues were with this kit, on the web, other than some general comments, even though I asked for specifics on web forums, I could only get a few words and generalisations. I wanted to find out just what was good and what was bad about the kit to make an informed choice before committing $$$ to its purchase, as this is quite an expensive kit. There are some sprue pics on the web, which indicated poor casting, but these tell you nothing about fit of parts or warped parts. No retail shop in my part of the world stocks this kit, so many other modellers, like me, would also be unable to inspect the contents before deciding to part with their cash.
Having made the purchase, I decided some comments and pictures may help others make more of an informed choice, if its something they are considering buying.
Here are some brief observations about whats in the box
The Sprues
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* Most sprues are cast in medium brown plastic, a few are cast in a slightly lighter brown.
* Many small parts are not fully formed, such as rungs and steps. The tracks for the T-38 are similarly missing large parts of casting.
* Heavy flash on all small parts
* Attachment of pieces to the sprues is by a large solid lump
* Large pieces that make up the cars and locomotive sides, bases, ends and roof are cast very thick.
* Some detail is very poorly cast
* Parts on the sprues are not numbered, though the large sides, bases and tops of each wagen type are marked with a letter or letters on the inside, to identify which wagon type the part belongs to
* no location pins on parts to assist with correct placment & fitting
The Instructions
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These are extremely basic, two A3 sized sheets, printed in B & W, both sides with very simple diagrams showing where parts go. There are no sprue layout diagrams to assist with identifying parts. No close ups or diagrams to assist with correct positioning of parts.
The decals
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a set is supplied for the full armoured train, even if you buy just the half train. The extras on the sheet need to be retained for use if you also purchase the half train.
Extras
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a small roll of copper wire is supplied to replace steps, hand rails, and rungs with.
Having viewed the contents, it was evident this kit would take a large amount of work, just to assemble it straight from the box. Many parts are so poorly cast as to be unusable, which is why the roll of wire has been included, the unusable parts are not just limited to the rungs and handrails
Its my intention to focus on one wagon, and complete its construction & undercoat it, before starting on another wagon. Final painting, weathering, etc, later.
I'll go into details of my build progress & pictures, with whats good and whats not so good about the kit & build in updates to this thread as I go.
Its my intention to improve or replace some parts of this kit.
For references I have these books as well as other pictures that can be found on the web
Trojca's Panzerzug BP42 / BP44
Sawodny's German Armored Trains of WW2 (Vol 1 & 2)
Schiffer's German Armored Trains on the Eastern Front, 1941-44
cheers
Neil
The Geschutzwagen
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I decided to start with this piece of the train first
My logic for starting here is that this would neither be the hardest, nor the easiest part of the build, so was as good a place as any to start.
Base, sides, ends and roof
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The base of this vehicle is the same as the Kommandowagens & Kanon and Flakwagens, though the sides and top are different on each. All doors and hatches are moulded on, closed
The base has the access doors, hinges, handles and fasteners moulded on, and this has not been done very well. I decided to leave the hinges as they are barely seen at the bottom, and scraped and sanded off the handles and fasteners and replaced them with wire and styrene. The fasteners are a simplified representation, which hopefully will look better than what was cast on, when the painting is done.
Footsteps each side also made from wire. The pre formed holes for mounting the footsteps were mostly in the wrong place when compared to plans and photos, so I filled them,
The base & sides, ends & top are all cast in very thick plastic - around 2mm thick, which is way overscale, but as the car is enclosed with a roof the thickness cant be seen.
The casting of detail on the sides and ends is much better than on the base, though its still a bit soft.
There is virtually no warping in any of these parts, probably due to the thickness of the casting. However this same thick casting makes getting a flush join between the roof, sides and ends difficult. I sanded down the upper inner edges of the walls ends and roof, to get a flush fit, with only a small amount of filler needed. The fit of this upper hull to the base was also quite good, just needed a small amount of filler too.
Care needs to be taken with front and rear ends to ensure they are squarely mounted. This requires some sanding to achieve.
Wheels
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The wheels are not badly cast, compared to much of the kit. The flanges are a little overscale in thickness and width, these are easy to sand down to look better, even though these are virtually unseen pieces. The axles were trimmed and the wheels were assembled 20mm apart as this is very close to Standard Gauge. The slots cast in the base for the wheels to protrude out of have a bit of free play, you could make these a bit wider to represent Broad Gauge, though all indications are that these trains only ran on Standard Gauge lines.
The Artillery Turret
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This comes in just two pieces - the turret and the gun. Hatches are moulded closed and it has no internal detail.
The gun that comes with this kit is what identifies this train as a BP-44. The turret is the same on BP-42 & 44 trains, but the BP 42 had captured russian 76mm field artillery guns or Skoda 100 mm howitzers fitted. By 1944 these earlier guns were in short supply, so german 105 mm M 18M howitzers were fitted, which were very different in appearance to the russian and czech guns. According to Sawodny, shortages of the german howitzers also saw some BP-44s fitted with the earlier cannon.
I decided to cut out the top commander's hatch, and the long hatch at the back of the turret. In pictures this long hatch is sometimes seen open to about the 2 o'clock position. This hatch is a bit narrow for personnel access, possibly it was opened so that the recoil of the artillery piece didnt strike the back of the turret, maybe to let fumes out, maybe to make it easy to eject spent cannisters. I'm not sure what its purpose was but I've made it partly open.
I've also added a front view port in the open position, and a grab handle thats seen on some pictures. I also rebuilt the external part of the 105 mm gun. As the commanders hatch was open, I also cut up a Revell 105mm artillery piece to provide some internal detail. It may not be very accurate, but only a small part is seen and is better than just empty space. The muzzle brake is from a Trumpeter Stug, being the brake for the 105mm version. Its not quite the right shape as compared to photos but may have to do.
I also drilled a hole in the hull where the turret fits so I could fashion and attach a spindle to the bottom of the turret so that it could rotate, otherwise it would need to be glued in place.
Other bits so far
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The frame that sits behind the turret is unusable, too poorly cast, so I made another out of wire. Not sure what this wire frame is for, but it does prevent the turret from being rotated to the point that it could damage the train were the gun to be fired.
The ventilation outlets on the roof were very badly cast, I made fresh ones out of styrene rod. Pictures show some of these cars had two ventilators, as I've done here. These cars only had one external door handle each side, so I cut all 4 off, and made 1 each side from wire.
I cut some of the side view ports open, as can be seen in some pictures, these could evidently be hinged open inside the car. One picture shows crew members heads looking out these same side ports
The buffers and end panels are not badly cast, just need a tidy up with a file. One buffer head at each end needs to be flattened with sanding, photos of german trains in this era always show one buffer face is rounded, the other is flattened.
thats the progress so far, I'll do another update when I've progressed this one a bit further
pics are below
cheers
Neil
