Is-3 Stalin Soviet Heavy Tank. Model Review. 1/72

Hello friends. Today we will talk about Soviet heavy tank IS-3 "Stalin" by Roden manufacturer.
This will be a review of Roden 701 model kit in scale 1/72

History:

The Iosif Stalin tank (or IS tank, named after the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin), was a heavy tank developed by the Soviet Union during World War II. The tanks in the series are also sometimes called JS or ИС tanks.

The heavy tank was designed with thick armour to counter the German 88 mm guns, and sported a main gun that was capable of defeating the new German Tiger and Panther tanks. It was mainly a breakthrough tank, firing a heavy high-explosive shell that was useful against entrenchments and bunkers. The IS-2 was put into service in April 1944, and was used as a spearhead in the Battle for Berlin by the Red Army in the final stage of the war.

The IS-3, a heavy tank, developed at Experimental Plant No.100, under the leadership of M. F. Balzha in 1944-45, was the latest Soviet tank developed in the course of the Great Patriotic War.
A special commission was formed in 1943 to analyse the reasons for the horrible losses suffered by the Soviet military tank units in the Battle of Kursk (6064 machines were lost during the 38 days of battle). Based on the commission's proceedings and on the IS-2, a new heavy tank, the IS-3 was designed, this tank was considered a breakthrough design. Its hull was welded from rolled steel armour plate with the maximum possible slope on the front glacis plate. The tank was also provided with a cast gun turret, having the shape of a flattened hemisphere, which gave it a more streamlined appearance. The thickness of the frontal armour was increased considerably, owing to a reduction of armour thickness in other less vulnerable areas. Thus, the frontal armour plates of the hull were 120 mm thick, while the front of the gun turret was 230 mm thick. Having the same overall weight after the modifications, the tank had 1.5 times less frontal area. In addition this tank was equipped with a commander's control system for gun turret rotation.
Production was started in May of 1945, and continued up to mid-1946. At the end of the War 29 tanks were produced, with their total production number continuing on to 2311.
The IS-3 was not used in any military action during World War II, but on September 7th 1945 a tank regiment had taken part in the parade of Red Army Units in Berlin, being dedicated to the victory over Japan.

The IS-3 had been modernised by the end of 1950's now being named the IS-3M.
The tank was not considered an export model, although two machines arrived in Poland during 1946, while another machine arrived in Czechoslovakia with the purpose of familiarisation and instructor training. A considerably larger number of tanks were sent to North Korea, which in the 1960's had two operational regiments of IC-3's. 100 IS-3 and IS-3M heavy tanks were delivered to Egypt from 1956 to 1967.

Model Kit review:

So let check the box.

Box isn't so huge.

Number of kit is 701

So look up inside the box. We can see there some molds, resin details, decals and specification.

And now I want to introduce to all of you, my dear readers,

real photo of built this model kit.

Thank you for attention.

Hetzer (early version) German Tank Destroyer

Hi again, my dear friends!
This is a model kit from exUSSR manufacturer UniModels.
Here are you welcome.
Hetzer tank destroyer in 1/72 scale!

This kit contain 112 light grey plastic parts on four sprues, 16 PE parts on one fret, decals for six or more vehicles and a 4 page A5 instruction booklet with history, parts plan, 11 clear build diagrams and 3 paint/decal drawings.
Highly detailed, The only early production Hetzer in 1/72 scale and machine gun shield plus side skirts in PE.

First issued in 1944, the Hetzer was a very successful tank Hunter (Jagdpanzer). With a very low profile, a 75 mm gun and a remote controlled MG it could take on anything the Allies could throw at it. Even though it's armour was quite thin, it was sloped at such an angle that it gave it's crews good protection.

Although the Hetzer was based on the 38(t) light tank, very little of this kit is from the earlier UM 38(t). Even the two track/suspension sprues are new with only the tracks themselves, bogies and a small number of add-ons carried over from the older kit. Marketed as an early production model, the sprues also contain all the parts for the Late Production Hetzer and the flame thrower Hetzer.

Therein lies the first minor problem. The early vehicles had road wheels with 32 bolts securing the armour plate to the wheel, but it was found that these bolts loosened in combat. Later vehicles had the armour riveted to the wheels, and the number was reduced to 16. Unfortunately, the kit comes with the late wheels only. You do get the late and early gun mantlet, engine deck, idler wheel and exhaust. You also get an optional non-perforated equipment box in plastic and the perforated box on the PE fret as in the earlier 38(t)s.

All the parts are nicely detailed and flash is at an absolute minimum, but care will have to be taken assembling the lower hull to make sure everything is aligned or the upper hull will not fit.

You can check this molds on pictures.

The PE fret contains some very nice side skirt armour, (Shutzen, not sure if that's the right spelling), the MG shield, a perforated heat shield for the early muffler, periscope shields, guard supports and the afore mentioned equipment box.

As usual for UM, they give you more vehicle markings than there are instructions for, but I guess to many is better than not enough.

My one criticism of this kit, apart from the wheels, that is, the hatches are all closed. Again, nit picking, as they shouldn't be hard to open.

Esci's Hetzer was one of their best. This kit from UniModels, I believe, will leave it for dead.

Thank you for attention!
Good luck and comment my post please in any questions!

Revell 1/72nd U-Boat

This is Revell-Germany's 1/72nd scale Type-VIIC U-boat. It's a big and rather striking model, though perhaps more "big" than "striking". Note how it overflows my jumped-up "photo studio" in the first picture and gets into one of the lights! Its sheer size makes it difficult to work on; I ended up having to move it to my "woodworking bench" just because there was more room there.

But for such a large model, it goes together relatively quickly and easily, though I found the rudders and stern diving planes somewhat fragile, and the odd shape of the dismounted conning tower makes it all too easy for it to roll off the workbench. Ask me how I know that. Sharp-eyed viewers will note that the optics at the top of the attack periscope are missing - they snapped off when the conning tower rolled off the bench and were never seen again.

I spent a lot of time opening up the free-flood holes in the hull, and in a way I wish I hadn't. I didn't duplicate any of the pressure hull behind the free-flood holes, so in the right light you can see all the way through the hull and it just doesn't seem right.

I decided to build it as Erich Topp's boat from earlier in the war ("U-552 Early" in the instruction sheet) though purists will note that I didn't apply Topp's Red Devil marking to the conning tower. Maybe someday, but my decal sheet was damaged by exposure to high temperature, wind, bad vibes or something and I only barely managed to salvage the decals on the base. Later, when I have more nerve, I'll try Topp's personalized markings, but for now, I'm simply pretending that the Red Devil washed off in high seas.

Buy lots of paint! The hull consumed a full bottle of Model Master flat black, and I still had to touch up here and there with a little bit of hardware flat black. Still, I knew I was going to weather the boat, so I didn't worry about the coverage too much. I weathered the boat with pastel chalks for the most part. I use a stiff white artist's brush to grind pigment off the bars of chalk, which is cleaner and easier than rubbing the stuff on sandpaper, and I kept sealing as I went along with Dullcoat. The clear flat spray darkens and tones down the weathering, so for a while I was scrubbing on pure orange and hoping that it would look all right overcoated. I think it does.

I found the Squadron "U-boats In Action" volume useful in building this kit.

There is no crew, yet. A while back I bought Revell's vinyl "Kriegsmarine" figure set and will add a few figures to the boat. I'll probably use the guys in slickers on my S-100 and add a couple of nonchalantly-standing guys to my U-boat just to give it an impression of scale. Any thoughts of showing the crew manning the deck gun were dashed when I hung the kill pennants from the overhead rope, but none of the Kriegsmarine figures look much like Topp and his bridge crew lounging in the sun while the boat arrives in port. So I'll just throw in one or two guys for scale and call it good.

Thanks for attention!