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US T29E1 Heavy Tank 1:35


Mike

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US T29E1 Heavy Tank

1:35 Hobby Boss

 

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Toward the end of WWII when the almost invulnerable (if temperamental) King Tiger reached the battlefield, the Allied began a scramble to complete existing heavy tank projects, and initiated some new ones.  The delayed Pershing project did manage to play a limited part in the final days of the conflict, but was considered too light to be effective counter to the Tiger II, which resulted in a larger chassis, a lengthened Pershing hull being mated to a huge turret that could house a previously unbeaten 105mm gun.  The all-up weight was around 64 tons, with armour that was almost 100mm thicker than the King Tiger on the front, so would have been able to march right up to one and knock on its glacis plate with its high velocity 4.1" diameter rounds, driven along by an engine putting out in excess of 700hp.

 

Sadly for the designers, the T-29 was unfinished by the end of the war, and as such became somewhat extraneous to requirements, ending its days as an engineering exercise for pushing the envelope in terms of tank design.

 

 

The Kit

Another new tooling from Hobby Boss, who seem to be enjoying kitting the many "almost" projects that were either made in small numbers, or barely got to the prototype stage.  As someone that enjoys seeing the unusual and odd, I'm enjoying this phase of theirs too, so always look forward to seeing what's around the corner.  The box is standard Hobby Boss, and inside are nine sprues and three large parts in grey styrene, eight sprues of track links in brown styrene, decal sheet, instruction booklet and separate colour painting guide.  The standout part in the box is the massive upper hull, which is… well, BIG.  The turret parts are also pretty large, and have a nice casting texture that should look good under a few coats of paint.  The tracks look like they could be a little fiddly, but we'll take a proper look at those later in the review.

 

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Wheels.  Lots of them.  Every tank has this to a greater or lesser extent, and there are 18 pairs of road wheels to make up, which have a styrene (not poly-cap) collar between the halves that has a friction fit with the axle.  Careful gluing is the order of the day if you want them to remain freewheeling.  The drive sprockets are similar, but with more parts, and the idler wheels are included in the road wheel set, as they are identical.  The drive sprockets are at the rear, and a portion of the lower hull is made up with the final drive housings and rear bulkhead attached, which is fitted to the back of the one-piece hull after removal of a couple of pegs from the top sides.  Suspension parts are then studded all over the hull sides, with bump-stops, dampers and stub-axles of various types added, and a run of seven two-part idler wheels on each side, with nine road wheels and the drive sprockets added to complete the underside.  Tracks come later.

 

The upper hull is structurally complete, but with gaps for the gratings on the engine deck, and all the usual light clusters, pioneer tools etc.   The fenders are also moulded in, and the starboard side has the exhaust and stowage boxes added, plus the bow-mounted machine gun barrel in its ball mount.  12 little shackles are added to the edges of the fenders, after which the upper hull is set aside while the tracks are constructed.

 

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113 links per side are needed, with a jig supplied to ease construction.  Five links are constructed at a time, with two separate end-caps to the links, which fit onto two pins projecting from each side of each link.  The instructions tell you to glue these to the tracks, but if you do, you will be left with a flat length of track that isn't much use to you.  I tried gluing one side of each pin to see whether I could obtain a workable link, but this failed due to the glue seeping across to the other side.  You could create the links in batches of five, wrapping them immediately around the wheels, but remember that the outer caps have a spade-like extension to give the tracks extra width, which the instructions don't mention.  I'm hoping for aftermarket tracks to become available before I build this, but with the addition of the sideskirts, less track would need to be used if you find it a chore, creating only enough to be seen.  The travel-lock for the main armament finishes off the hull, and we move onto the turret.

 

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The turret halves are brought together immediately, and care will need to be taken in aligning the seams, and creating a realistic joint, which was a rough curve in places, and sharp in others.  Check your references and reinstate any lost texture using glue and a stippling paint brush.  The mantlet is in two parts and glues into the front of the turret, leaving the outer mantlet free to move, and the barrel is a two part moulding that fits into a keyed hole in the mantlet.  There are three hatches on the top of the turret, with no clear parts, so you'll have to paint the vision blocks a suitable colour to give it some realism, plus of course a .5 M2 derivative on a mount at the front of the turret, and aerial mounts at the rear.  The turret attaches to the hull with a standard bayonet fixing that you drop in and twist to lock, leaving it free to rotate.

 

 

Markings

Don't get too excited, as there are four decals on a tiny wee sheet, and all of them are white, and all of those are type designations for the front glacis and rear fenders.  Olive drab is the scheme, but there's nothing to stop you from going off-book and doing a speculative scheme as if it had entered service either at the end of a longer WWII, or in Korea to name a couple of examples.  Imagine a Maus and a T29 going head-to-head in Berlin!

 

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Conclusion

A real monster of a tank that didn't go beyond prototype, but is still an interesting dead-end that shows how worried about the King Tiger and whatever was to come next from the Nazi War Machine.  It's available at a fairly pocket friendly price too.

 

Highly recommended.  

 

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Review sample courtesy of

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I'm not the tracks' biggest fan, and you can't use AM Pershing tracks due to the little spades on the links. but I guess you could substitute those parts for the outer pins on a set of Friuls maybe? :hmmm:

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