I figured I’d branch out of my comfort zone a little and join the Cars & Trucks group build.
Just a little bit outside my comfort zone, though. 
I chose an armored car – so that I could still fit it on my 1/35 shelf with my other Finnish/Soviet armor, yet still do some “car” related building to stretch my skills and fit into the group build’s rules.
The BA-6 armored car was built upon a Soviet-made 6X4 version – the GAZ AAA – of the Ford AAA truck. Its inline 4-cylinder gas engine made a modest 40hp. (EDIT: Another source suggests that the BA-6 had more powerful 60hp engine.) It shared a turret and main 45mm gun with the T-26 tank, for which it carried 60 shells. Unsurprisingly these cars struggled in any off-road application, although the spare-tire placement was cleverly designed to help prevent bottoming out or high-centering. The kit didn’t include them, but most of the period photos show some kind of field-mountable track system, surely an attempt to improve the car’s cross-country performance, mounted on the exterior hull (one photo shows them mounted inside the hull as well, so…?).
For some more background on the BA series of armored cars, within which the BA-6 fits, and a bunch of photos of burned-out wrecks, check out this neato video I stumbled across:
The BA-6 (and its successor, the BA-10, with which my HobbyBoss kit shares most of its parts) was used extensively in the 1939 Soviet invasion of Finland, where their thin 1930s-style 0.9cm armor proved useless against anything bigger than small arms. Here’s a couple period photos of wrecks – there are many, many more – from the Finnish army photo archive, SA-KUVA.
The Finns captured dozens of them during that conflict and the subsequent advance in the early days of the Continuation War (parallel with Barbarossa). Some records are missing, but about 10 BA-6s were accepted into Finnish service and were used in recce/combat roles during the Continuation War. These BA-6s, or "BAF B"s – the Finnish designation – have been re-marked with the Finnish hakaristi (swastika) which, of course, predated and was not related to the Nazi emblem.
I’ll be building mine as one similar to the above photos, in Finnish service. I have some decals on hand already, but what I’m still very unsure of is: did the Finns repaint these, or simply slap their markings on top of the Soviet green? I know both methods were used on other captured vehicles, but it depended largely on urgency – a case by case kind of thing. I’ll keep researching, but this might be a best-guess scenario, unless I can find some records of a specific machine.
Anyway, on to the model! The kit appears to be well-molded, with only a little flash, nice detail and texture for the most part. I have run into a few parts with pretty bad seam lines/registration issues, but oddly, they aren’t across an entire sprue, just single parts. Nothing too terrible and certainly nothing that will show.
Being my first “auto” kit, building up a frame, suspension, and engine are all new to me – a fun challenge! Pretty straightforward so far:
And there was the end of the “straightforward” part. Axle assembly wasn’t bad, but once the shackles, tie rods, and assorted suspension parts came into play, I really had to slow down and think about each move. Some parts had nice locating pins that almost had a snap-fit feel, while others didn’t even have a reference mark – and the instructions were only somewhat helpful. See parts C7 and C6 for example.
“Fiddly” isn’t really the right word for some of these tiny parts – and I’ve built 1/72 aircraft cockpits WITH photo etch!! 
In the end I managed to get everything glued on – and if some bits are a little out of square, well, I’ll just have to hope that no GAZ mechanics ever flip my model over.
The biggest challenge really was that some parts had ambiguous placement, but then later parts relied on those first parts for THEIR placement. The trick was to actually rush along a bit so that the cement was still soft enough for adjustments as you went.
This worked fairly well for the powerplant, though I won’t know if some of those coolant hoses are angled correctly until much later in the build, when the radiator gets dropped in.
As I was struggling to decipher some of these parts placements I remembered seeing a photo in the Finnish archive of the engine compartment – so I pulled it up:
… and it wasn’t much help. 
It looks like this one’s already been cannibalized for parts, and/or burned out. Also visible in the photo are what looks like a Soviet M43 helmet, a pan magazine for a DP-27 “record player” machinegun, a Finnish fur hat, and at least one empty 7.62x54R casing. Pics like this that tell a human story with unanswered questions… are good reminders of what these little plastic kits represent.
Next up is assembling the rest of the chassis and suspension, and then installing the motor and the firewall/dashboard, cab, and deck. And I have to figure out what colors to use on the motor and interior before I get too far ahead of myself.
Research time! Any advice on color choices would be welcome. Thanks for looking!
I have learned at least to let such mishaps completely cure before attempting to scrape or sand the damage; it’s definitely fixable.
The ski trooper is from 