Hello everyone,

This has been a shelf queen for at least two years. I've finally completed the build phase.


What caused me to put this build aside was the complicated straps for the oil can on the top engine. I finally got around to dealing with it and here is the result.


I have annealed the straps to keep it from springing back. They are not quite parallel but I'm sticking with it.

Then, I started working on the ditching log. I was not too happy with the kit supplied chains.


It did not look realistic enough to me. I went through my spares box and saw some chains that I thought would be a suitable replacement. After cutting off the kit chains, I glued one end of my replacement to the base.


Here's how it looks installed on to the chassis.


And then tested on the log.


Here is the final result.


One other small modification I made was to replace the molded handle bar with wire.


Other than those two mods, the kit was built pretty much out of the box.










Next step if the application of primer.

Thanks,

Joseph

Your build and detailing look pretty good. One are I am not to sure about are the tracks on the right side of the vehicle as they "float" above the roadwheels. Are you depicting the vehicle in motion?

Thanks for the reply. I am not depicting it in motion. I guess I should make it sag some more. I'll see if I can fix that. Thanks again!

Fixed the tracks on the right side last night. I think the sag looks pretty good now. Thanks for pointing it out.

This looks amazing, i'm afraid i don't know anything about this kit or vehicle so i would appreciate if you can tell us something about it and it's use int he real world

Accurate Armour do a nice mantlet for this kit

Nice build. The little details show. I built the 1956 version, but it got crushed before it was finished. Too bad, as I put a lot of time into the camo.

Hi David,

Thanks for the chime-in. I have been drawn to this vehicle because I am a fan of the Stug and to me, this looks like a highly streamlined incarnation.

This was based off of the chassis of the PT-76 but without the amphibious capability. According to the internet, its main armament is the 85 mm main gun D-70 and an armor thickness of 40–45 mm. One iconic image of this was it use in "Prague Spring" check out the middle section of this page http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/military-history/prague-spring-1968-the-whole-world-is-watching/. You should see one heavily laden with Soviet troops. Hope this helps.

I have completed the application of primer. I used the Mission Models Grey primer and here are the resulting pictures.





And just for size comparison, I placed it side-by-side to a German Jagdpanther.





There are supposedly no variants for this vehicle but Trumpeter has two versions, 1956 and 1970. The external difference is the DsHk MG.


-Joseph

That's a major bummer. Sorry to see that. Did you ended up throwing this in the trash? What a waste!

I thought this may be worth mentioning. I have previously built this in 1/72 scale. It was a resin kit by ARMO.


Here are some pictures from WIP to completion.









I made the mistake of not extending the white recognition cross on top of the vehicle. I used a completed 1/35 scale one online as a reference and it was painted the same way.

Are the tracks on the trumpy kit the ones included in the kit? I thought it was single link but those look like rubber band type tracks...

Really beautiful build by the way, very tidy PE work, looks like you've no good reason to avoid it in the future!

I binned the kit, as it was beyond salvage. I have a few, spare pieces for my next attempt.