Clearwater Models: December 2020

Wednesday 30 December 2020

OBJECT 703, ИС-3M, IS-3M HEAVY TANK (Trumpeter)

Object 703, ИС-3M, IS-3 (Ио́сиф Ста́лин Iosef Stalin-3) heavy tank was the product of a competition between the Kirovskiy Factory No. 100 in Tankograd in Chelyabinsk (Кировский Завод No. 100), and the Chelyabinsk Tractor Factory (ЧТЗ Челябинский тракторный завод) in late 1944. The final version incorporated design aspects from both teams. The first three production tanks (project name Kirovets-1) were delivered in May 1945 and sent immediately to Berlin, but arrived after the Nazi scum had been defeated. The tanks took part in the Berlin victory parade and the Moscow victory parade.

Some 2311 were built from 1945 through 1947, with most serving in the Soviet Army. The upgrade to produce the IS-3M was begun in 1948, and resulted in a better tank but a weight gain up to 49 tonnes. A tiny number were passed to Eastern European allies for tests and acclimation, yet never served in any of those armies. Several were used in the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary, and were roasted in the streets of Budapest by the population. More than a hundred went to ill-trained Egyptian armoured units, and from there on to Israel due to their better wartime skills. The type continued in active service for decades until being sent into long-term storage depots in the mid-1980s. The last known use was in 2014 when a pedestal display tank was refurbished and briefly used by Russian-supported seperatists in Ukraine.

The model has been done as a tank of the 71st Guards Heavy Tank Regiment of the 2nd Guards Tank Army posted in the western USSR on the Polish border in 1960.

This is the Trumpeter 1:35 scale model (#00316) from 2002. The vinyl rubber-band tracks have great detail, but were too long, so I cut out one link on each side and used an office stapler to re-attach the loop. This worked perfectly, and the staples are painted black and hidden under the dust skirt. I added ten metal handles on the turret as the plastic ones do not fit to the holes. Also, I added glass to the headlights, and added metal protectors over the headlights. The machine gun has the sighting plate drilled out, and two holes drilled through the sides of the muzzle brake.

Paint is Tamiya XF-26 Deep Green, with an overspray of mixed X-8 Lemon Yellow and deep green with thinner; then an overspray of yellow and white with mostly thinner. This was my first attempt at spraying thinned yellow onto a paint job, and I was happy with the results. Decals sit on a layer of Future Floor Wax and used a bit of Solvaset to settle into the moulding of the cast turret so the crest and hull numbers take on a true painted look. The whole thing is matted down using a few coats of Vallejo clear matte. Dust and dirt are rubbed on Vallejo powders. I like tanks with track skirts as those hide my building errors.

Object 703, ИС-3M IS-3M (Ио́сиф Ста́лин Iosef Stalin-3M) heavy tank

Wednesday 23 December 2020

inbox review TITANIC Seal & Iceberg Scene (Suyata)

This is a first look in the box of the new TITANIC egg/cartoon scale model from the new Suyata models released in 2020. TITANIC SEAL & ICEBERG SCENE, Suyata (HK) International Co., Ltd, of Hong Kong (kit #SL001)

The kit is not officially available in North America due to lack of a distributor, but I acquired this one from a factory in China. It arrived in about 15 days by post.

Quality and details are excellent. It can be made waterline or full hull version. All parts are moulded in appropriate colours, but any purist will of course paint most everything. Technically it is a snap-together kit, but of course purists will glue everything in place and add rigging. Overall it is 150 mm long.

The only negative is the lack of decals for the hull. This seems odd given the quality and the decal for the base/stand.

Overall this kit is far and away better than the new Meng cartoon kit of the Titanic, which has fewer parts, fewer decks, and is overall smaller.

Real wooden decks as extras are available for this Suyata kit on-line for only about $10.

This would make a great kit to do with a child over a weekend, or for an actual modeller to do up fancy.

For reasons I do not understand, all of the six seals in the kit have names. Even the small seals are the size of a funnel on the ship.

My video review on youtube is attached here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjsfoTdB2cU

This is my first in-box review, as this is one of the first of these kits to come to Canada and be reviewed in English.

Tuesday 15 December 2020

RENAULT R-39 TANK (Heller Humbrol)

This is the 1:35 scale Heller Humbrol kit (#81133) of the Renault R-35 light infantry support tank, but with the SA 38 turret gun making it into the R-39 tank used immediately after WWII. In this model I have imagined the tank in service with the French expeditionary army trying to re-occupy and pacify Indochina (Viet Nam) after WWII until their tank force was upgraded by the USA but they were then totally defeated and humiliated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. This was France's main tank in WWII, with a production run, until the Nazi scum invasion, of about 1600 units.

I bought the kit from Bill at Hobby Centre in Ottawa as a quick Covid-19 project, and it turned out okay for a three day build. Paint is a mix of Vallejo and Tamiya acrylics. The chain comes with the kit and is most appreciated. The tracks are the rubber-band type and of acceptable quality. The drive wheel has teeth which are far too large and close together to really fit into the slots in the track links. As the tank is very small this 1:35 scale model looks like a very large 1:72 scale kit. The tank is photographed in front of a reproduction of a 1954 battle poster extolling the PAVN fight to win over the French enemy at Dien Bien Phu, Tonkin, Viet Nam.

French expeditionary army R-39 tank used in Indochina/Viet Nam 1946-1950

Saturday 5 December 2020

2K12 Куб KUBE S.A.M. SYSTEM (Trumpeter)

The 2K12 Kube Куб (cube) short- and medium-range surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile system was used by the USSR, all Warsaw Treaty countries, and various importers which bought it from the USSR. It was designed to destroy aircraft up to 10 000 m altitude flying under 2000 km/hr with a single shot kill probability of 0.7. Updated versions remain in use.

The model shows a regular Soviet Army air defence battery live firing a missile during the May 1977 Zapad-77 Запад-77 (West-77) exercises for most of the Warsaw Treaty members held in the USSR, Poland, Czechoslovakia and the DDR.

Understanding the holes in their air defence against NATO attack, the Kremlin ordered a new mobile air defence system, Development of this crucial battlefield SAM system began in 1958 at the Scientific Research Institute of Instrument Design (Научно-исследовательский институт риборостроения) and at the Mytishchi Machine-Building Plant (Мытищинский машиностроительный завод ММЗ). A completed system shot down its first aircraft in 1963, and a further four years of refinements brought it to full production from 1967 - 1985 of what amounted to over 500 launchers and several thousand 3M9M4 missiles. Most were made in the first few years at the Kalinin Machine-Building Plant (Машиностроительный завод имени М.И.Калинина) and the Ulyanovsk Mechanical Plant (Ульяновский механический завод УМЗ).

Each missile has a range of 4–24 km and an reach from 50 m above ground to 14 km up. It weighs 600 kg and the warhead a further 56 kg. Top missile speed is about Mach 2.8. This was the first combined solid rocket motor and ramjet ever deployed.

The main customer was the Soviet Army, followed by all the air defence forces of the allied Warsaw Treaty countries. The USSR sold the systems all over the world. The greatest combat success came in 1973 when the Egyptian army used to it shot down at least 40 Israeli fighter aircraft, much to the surprise and consternation of the USA. More bizarrely, the Iraqis used it to shot down a fair number of US-made jets from the Iranian air force in the early part of the Ira-Iraq War Gulf War I, 1980-1987). During the US war against Iraq, the two USAF aircraft were hit by the Kube: a B-52 and an F-16. The USAF made up a story about a friendly fire incident to cover the damage to the B-52. The F-16 was totally destroyed and the pilot captured. Syrian forces were able to destroy some 10% of incoming USA/UK/French missiles in the April 2018 attacks. The lesson is that this old system remains a powerful air defence weapon in the third world, and can even be used against the US military.

In Russia Kube was replaced by the 9K37 Buk (Бук) (beech tree) missile system.

This is the Trumpeter 1:35 scale kit #00361 from 2005, and it is a very nice kit with a lot of detail and more than enough links for the tracks. A small P.E. sheet adds lovely bits. Paints are Tamiya Deep Green for the T.E.L. tractor body, and NATO Green for the missiles. The missiles have been left clean as from the factory, while the armour was rubbed with powders and central-European dirt/mud from Vallejo. A pencil edge made for metal rubbed spots and scratches. I added a painted Xmas tree ornament and cotton wool fuzz as a blast/flame for a launch. Thank you to Bill at Hobby Centre in Ottawa for this used kit.