AMPS New Zealand. Soviet T-37 kit review

Background

I have always liked the small amphibious tanks that the Soviets built prior to WWII. Kits of such subjects are few and far between so I was happy when I saw that LF Fort from the Ukraine had produced an injection-moulded kit of the T-37 and it's successor the T-38. The T-37 had it's roots in a British Carden Loyd design but featured a new type of suspension that was based on current French design. The T-37 was a two-man machine that featured a couple of sheet metal clad balsa floats which doubled as track guards. It had a twin bladed propellor and a rudder at the rear for use in water. Its armour was thin and its armament consisted of a single DT machine gun. There was a command version, which featured a radio and a distinctive frame aerial. Most T-37's were not equipped with a radio and relied on flag signals for communication. Reference material for this beast is very thin on the ground. I managed to come up with a few photos and some 1/76^th scale plans From Steve Zaloga's Russian tanks book. One thing the photos highlighted was that there was considerable variation in details. This is not surprising given that well over 1000 examples were built. The most obvious variation is the T-28 style turret that was used on some vehicles. These vehicles also appear to have a simplified drivers compartment. Other variations appear in the style and position of various fittings. The box art provides a reasonable reference for details such as fittings and the suspension.

First Look

When I opened the box I found that while the kit is not a state of the art offering, it did appear that a decent sort of model could be built with a little effort. Some of the smaller parts such as lights and horn were a little crude for my liking, but these are easy to replace. The hull has to be assembled from multiple parts as with many Eastern European kits. The tracks are supplied in individual link form. These take considerable effort to clean up and also appear to be too wide. As an added bonus, parts are provided for a frame aerial that enable the command version to be modelled.

Construction

I started construction by assembling the main hull parts. This requires a little care to ensure that the parts are correctly aligned but this presented few problems. There were some small gaps that needed filling. I chose to use typists' correction fluid to fill these gaps for several reasons. Firstly the stuff is easy to apply with its own little applicator brush. Secondly it dries very quickly and thirdly it can be cleaned up without damaging adjacent detail such as rivets. Once the fluid had hardened (a minute or so) I used tools carved from wooden toothpicks to scratch away the bulk of the excess filler. The wooden tools do not damage the surrounding detail but still remove the relatively soft filler. Liquid glue was then used to blend and level the remaining filler. I then turned my attention to the air intake on the rear deck. The kit provides this as one solid part. I carved out the mesh grille with a knife and files and then built a replacement from plastic strip and some spare PE mesh. The intake looked much better as a result of this work. The exhaust pipe was drilled out and cleaned up before adding new straps from plastic strip. The floats had some surface sink marks which required filling. The tools were added to the floats after being fitted with new brackets made from lead foil. The headlight and taillight were replaced with items from the spares box. I added a stopper to the driver's hatch. I ground out the headlights to accept MV Products lenses. I rebuilt the horn, as this was a little crude. I chose to build my model as a normal tank and so left the frame aerial off.

Rivets

I added a row of rivets to the upper edge lower hull. I made these by punching them out of lead foil using a jeweller's beading tool. My method is similar to Tony Greenland's but negates the need for a hammer and a piece of vulcanised rubber to punch the rivets into. I place a piece of lead foil over my finger and press the beading tool through the lead foil. This is not as painful as it may sound as very little pressure is required. The little rivets made this way have a nice domed form. I use a hobby knife position a few rivets on the model and then apply some liquid plastic cement with a fine pointed brush to dissolve the kit plastic. The rivets can be moved with the tip of a hobby knife before the glue dissolves if any adjustments need to me made to their position. The dissolved surface provides enough adhesion to keep the rivets in place. The beading tool set I use comes with ten different tools which enables a good range of rivet sizes to be modelled. More variety can be achieved by using varying thicknesses of lead foil. Naturally care must be taken when handling toxic substances like lead. Wash your hands well after finishing. I have found this technique can be quite quick once you get going.

I then turned to the turret. The kit provides a reasonable rendition of the standard type of turret. I had to do some filling on the sides and roof in the frontal region. One problem I noticed was that the vision block on the turret rear was missing. I drilled and filed the aperture for this and added rivet detail around it. I decided that I would display the model as an abandoned vehicle with the turret hatch open. This meant that some internal detailing needed to be done. The kit provides a nice little DT machine gun but that's as far as it goes. Having said that I have since replaced the kit DT with a superb white metal item from Model Kasten. I used the Fort DT to replace the awful one that comes with the Start BA-20M armoured car. I was doing a closed top BA-20M and felt the Model kasten item would be wasted on that model. I had no direct reference for the turret interior but I did have some drawings and pictures of the small mg turret from a T28. I reasoned that the layout and fittings

would be very similar and so I worked from these. I started with the front plate where I added a mounting for the machine gun and a vision device. Vision devices were added behind the other vision slots. An internal ring was added to the turret from plastic strip. I made a traverse mechanism from scrap and added this to the front lower left of the turret. I added a rack for spare vision blocks to the lower right. A seat attached to the hull floor filled most of the visible space beneath the turret. The commanders hatch also had some detailing work done to it. The MG barrel was drilled out.

The suspension was then addressed. The bogey units are simplified and so I decided to make some improvements here. The mounting points of each bogey are portrayed as a solid triangular fillet. On the real thing there is a bent metal arm that flares out at the bottom where the swinging arms attach. The box art shows this clearly. I reshaped the triangles into a "L" shape and then added the curved arms from plastic card. The kit bogey spring units are very crude and I replaced these with new ones made from plastic rod with new springs made from fine solder wire. The drive sprockets have several lightening holes around their circumference. Photos generally show these as recesses so I covered the backs with disks punched from sheet plastic.

The kit tracks require a lot of cleanup and have very chunk attachment points. I detailed the rear idler mountings with plastic sheet and bolt heads punched from plastic sheet. The drive sprockets and idlers were left free to rotate to make fitting the tracks easier. I saw some Model Kasten Tracks for the T37 advertised at Rainbow Ten so I ordered a set. When they arrived it was obvious that the kit tracks were visibly wider. The MK tracks are very petite and are supplied on sprues containing three links. If you cut them from the sprues cleanly they require little or no cleanup and I found them a pleasure to work with. The tracks took one evening's work to assemble. After I finished I sat back to admire my handiwork. I then realised that I had mounted the tracks the wrong way around! It would have been a big job to rectify this as the glue had dried. I had a quick flick through my reference photos and I found a real example with tracks on back to front so I decided to leave well alone.

Finishing off

A comprehensive decal sheet is provided with the kit and options are given for Soviet, Finnish and German examples. The quality of the decals looked a bit dubious so I decided no to use them. The turret interior was painted white with details picked out in black prior to final assembly and masked off. I chose a Soviet wartime scheme of plain dark green. This was done by applying a dark green base coat followed by a lighter overspray. The MV lenses were added at this stage. If you use these on a weathered model then you may want to consider weathering these too. I have seen some really grubby models with spotless headlights that just don't look right. An overspray of matt varnish may be enough to tone the lenses down a little.

All in all I was pleased with the final result and I feel that the model captures the look of the T-37 well. The kit tracks are it's biggest problem but they can still be used in the absence of a suitable alternative. The MK tracks I used made a big difference in both ease of assembly and accuracy. The refinements I added were relatively straight forward and yet made a visible difference to the finished product. I look forward to tackling the little T-38 from Fort. Those who are put off by the tracks could consider modelling the vehicle in water. This would save a lot of time as you could ignore all the lower hull and suspension details.

References

Soviet tank and Combat Vehicles of World War Two. Arms & Armour Press 1984. Steve Zaloga & James Grandsen.

Russian Tanks 1900-1970. Arms & Armour Press 1970. John Milsom

Tanks Illustrated No. 16 Operation Barabarossa. Arms & Armour Press 1985. Steve Zaloga & James Grandsen

Allied Combat Tanks. WW2 Fact Files. MacDonald & Janes 1978. Peter Chamberlain & John Milsom.

Soviet Combat tanks. Almark 1970. Peter Chamberlain & Chris Ellis.

Armed Fist 1932-1941. Teckno Monogram 125015 Moscow A15 Russia 1999.