Picked this kit up in a swap. Was a relatively quick assembly, not counting the Eduard photoetch of course. Some flash, some really thick sprue gates, and some poor fit that couldn’t be fixed by clamping (particularly around the front fenders - there’s no way to make them fit like on the the real deal, so don’t look too close).
There are some part and sprue number typos in the instructions, but careful assembly and dry fitting can avoid issues here; one glaring mistake is that they direct you to install the rear suspension spring assembly backwards. Easy to fix if you catch it before the cement sets. Notice the awful joins, sprue gates, and seam lines on the suspension parts. Luckily, all period photos show these totally caked with sand and mud…[Y]
I can’t decide if I love or hate working with PE. Still refining my glue procedures.
I’m setting this one up as a Finnish-captured tank, used against the Soviets during the Continuation War phase of WWII. The Finns had a small fleet of Vickers 6T tanks before the war, and captured many dozens of Soviet T-26s of all flavors during the Winter War of 1939 and the early stages of the Continuation War (concurrent with Barbarossa), and so their resulting T-26s were a mishmash of parts of all of these. It’s hard to pick out a specific tank that appears in more than one or two period photos, so this one will be a “generic” Finnish T-26 set up as one might have been in the mid-war period, as best as I can tell.
The majority of T-26s in Finnish service were either the “B” type, with the cylidrical turret and 45mm Soviet main gun, or the “E” type which was a Vickers tank fitted with the same 45mm gun and a Soviet co-axial MG (taken from captured Soviet equipment).
The Finns didn’t use the Soviet handrail-type radio antenna, opting for a whip-style antenna on the few radio-equipped tanks. There are lots of photos of T-26s in Finnish use (and others, for that matter) with the antenna removed but the mounts still in place, so I decided to go that route. The soft kit styrene made this modification easier than I expected.
Other modifications included deleting the hull-front horn (though it is present on some Finnish T-26s); cutting off the (entirely non-detailed) periscope from the left side of the turret, and scratchbuilding the proper one (as seen on this example at the Parola Tank Musuem in Finland) for the right side, where they appear to be on all Finnish T-26s. It’s not perfect, but much better than the smooth nub the kit came with.
I also replaced the resin coax MG with with some brass rod for a big upgrade in detail for little effort.
I also cut off and drilled out the large rivets (?) on the sides and rear of the turret, which I believe are actually small arms “anti-anti-tank-troop” ports with a sliding door on the inside – at least on Finnish tanks.
The rest of the build was just bending and gluing on PE parts (and looking for them on the floor [:'(]). Looking at the photos just now I noticed I forgot to install the lifting rings on the turret top.
Tool and spare part external stowage seems to be literally all over the place in Finnish period photos. I’ve opted to only add the shovel, after modifying it to match the finnish type with a T-handle. I have some aftermarket towing cables on the way but might not use them if they don’t look right. One thing that almost all Finnish T-26s show are extra bogey wheels mounted on the rear hull, but I’m not going to order a whole extra kit just for those, so…[^o)]
Once I add those last PE parts, it’ll be paint time. Think I’ll just do the basic dark green on this one (how would I ever mask for camo over all that PE?). I’ll be using the kit’s very tight rubberband tracks, since about half the period photos show no track sag at all. I have a few 1/35 Finnish tank crew and if I can get them looking good I’ll pose them with the turret hatches open.
