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This is my first armour build, let me know what you think.

Does anybody know which colour the primer of the little Renault FT-17 had during the WWI-era? Guessing it had primer under the camo. Building the Meng kit currently. Thx a lot for any input!

Renault FT & M1917 PhotoSniper 3D (9788366148048) Kagero via Casemate UK The diminutive Renault tank that is often known somewhat incorrectly as the FT-17 was the first true tank of the form that we know today, having a separate turret that could rotate 360o to fire in all directions. It arrived late in WWI and was so successful that it was to stay in service in some locations for up to 25 years and even America was a customer, building their own under license as the M1917 until they could produce their own tanks of a sufficient standard. With upgrades along the way it managed to take part in the early days of WWII in French service although it was hopelessly outclassed by even the early-war German tanks and fell to their guns with alarming regularity, with many being abandoned by their unfortunate crews. In their usual "that's mine now" manner, the Nazis pressed the little tanks into service but away from the front lines as defensive vehicles for airfields, arms dumps and other high value targets of the Resistance. The FT also saw service with a number of other countries and was copied by some others with greater or lesser divergence from the original. This book is a thick tome from Kagero and is number 29 in their PhotoSniper 3D line. It is 180 pages perfect bound into a card cover and is written by Jacek Szafrański and Samir Karmieh. It is broken down into sections, as follows: Introduction A Brief history of the tank with photos of it in service with many of its operators. Walkaround A 65 page photographic description of both the FT-31 and FT-17 variants of the vehicle, all in colour. 3D Visualisation The balance of the book is devoted to a huge quantity of computer generated images of the tank, including cross-sections and internal equipment such as engines, guns and suspension. The photographs in the introductory section are mostly from interwar and WWII situations and are presented in high quality black and white with captions to match. The walkaround section is based upon preserved examples in museums and of course the photographs are crisp and in full colour. As with all museum vehicles, take care not to assume that everything is in the correct place, as sometimes museums get it wrong or go with what they have through expediency, however if using the photos as highly detailed supporting information you won't go far wrong. Conclusion A very useful book for anyone that has this model in their stash, whether it is the 1:35 Meng, 1:16 Takom kit, or one of the smaller scale renditions that have been around for some years. The level of detail exposed is second to none, and will assist with building and detailing any kit of this ground-breaking tin can. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Hallo everyone, This is actually my second WWI build. The tank is tiny, I fall in love with this cute little thing in Paris. Kit is excellent and a joy to build!

My fellow modelers, my on-again, off-again relationship with this project has now finally found an end. Like in every build so far there were some first-timers for me: First model kit in 72nd scale. First armor kit since returning to the hobby. First time dealing with all that glorious mud, grime and dirt poducts. Felt like a kid in a puddle, lol. The kit itself is nearly perfect. Awesome details, great fit and six varied schemes to choose from. The real challenge, at least for me, were all those incredible tiny parts. Keep in mind that Renault built a tank with 5 m (16.4 ft) of length and 2.14 m (7 ft) of height. Beside the priming the whole build took place under the magnifier. There is an interesting fact about the history of this tank: Renault started production in 1917, late in WW1. Thus most of them never saw action on the field. This one was, like many of its kind, transferred to the French colonies to ensure dominance of the occupying force. Later, after the armed truce of Compiègne (06/22/1940), in which the Germans allowed France to keep its colonial forces armed, this vehicle became part of the Armee de l'Armistice. The writing on the turret states "Le Champagne". For the presentation I cut and sanded a piece of ebony. What a great material! I finish with the obligatory scale picture. Looking forward to your comments and suggestions. Torben

Soviet T-18 Light Tank Mod 1927 1:35 HobbyBoss At the end of the Great War the French FT-17 light tank was well-regarded, as it was the first true tank with a fully rotating turret and reasonable manoeuvrability, which were two things that the British tanks didn't have. The Americans used the design, as did Japan into the 1930s, and this Soviet light tank is also based on the same basic chassis, but with improved suspensions and a redesigned upper hull to mount a larger turret, which resulted in an enlarged upper deck that overhangs the tracks. The design went through some changes to counter the initial lacklustre performance of the original T-16 design, although the out-dated 37mm gun was retained, which although it wasn't capable enough to target and penetrate other armoured targets, could be loaded with shrapnel rounds that were quite effective against soft targets. It stayed in service until the early 30s as a training vehicle, as it was found to be unsatisfactory in frontline use. The Kit We have been treated to FT-17 kits in 1:35 of late, and HobbyBoss are slowly working their way through the more esoteric Russian early armour, so the T-18 turning up was just a matter of time. It is a new tooling, and comes in a small top-opening box with a card divider inside to protect the delicate hull parts. Cocooned within individual bags, some of which are further protected by a thin foam sheet, there are four sprues in a sand coloured styrene, plus three individual parts in the same colour, two in brown styrene for the tracks, plus a small sheet of Photo-Etch (PE), instruction booklet and a separate glossy painting guide. The kit seems nicely detailed, uses a smattering of slide-moulding to improve detail further, and parts breakdown is sensible, so should go together well with few issues. Construction begins with the road wheel bogies, which have the revised vertical travel suspension arms grouped in two sets of two, and one of three with the longer one at the front, that has an additional strut attached, reducing the initial deflection on hitting an obstacle. A set of return rollers that were added to keep the track from strumming are fitted over the road wheels, with the larger front idler wheel and drive sprocket at the rear completing the running gear work, until the installation of the tracks later on. The lower hull is tiny, so the addition of the rounded casemate below the turret gives it a rather top heavy look that is partially reduced by the fenders added to the sides. These mate neatly with the lower hull, and the front deck is completed with doors for the driver that form the larger part of the small glacis. The rear bulkhead has a row of holes drilled in its rear for engine cooling, which turned out to be insufficient in practice. This is replicated by a PE panel that is bent over the underlying plastic part, and it would be a good idea to anneal the PE in a flame to soften it before applying, and considering removing the styrene behind the holes for a more realistic look. The FT-17's unditching skid at the rear is carried over almost unchanged, and is made up from the skid surface plus a slightly simplified supporting framework. The hull is completed with some louvres on the rear deck, pioneer tools and a vision hatch for the driver, after which the tracks can be added. The tracks are held on the two brown sprues, and you will need 51 individual links per side, which have three sprue gates per link, but no ejector pin marks, making clean-up quite straight forward. Simply glue the links with liquid glue against a straight-edge, and then wrap the still soft track run around the wheels, dialling in the correct sag by packing the links to hold them in place. The detail on the outer surface of the links is excellent, and they should look good once painted up and weathered. Only the turret remains to build, and this is a fairly straight forward affair, as it has no internal detail to complicate matters. The upper section is dressed with the mantlet insert fitting into one facet of the front, receiving the hollow muzzled 37mm barrel, while the other facet has two machine gun barrels inserted in a small mount, both of which could do with their barrels drilling out to add realism. They also aren't shown on the box art, which instead shows a single, more Hotchkiss-like gun in a ball mount. A small raised "mushroom" cupola fits into the hole in the top, and the turret just drop-fits into the hull. Markings There aren't any! You can paint it Russian Green though, and the glossy guide shows you that it goes everywhere on the hull and roadhweels. I guess that because it was barely used, there aren't that many photos of any markings, so they erred on the cautious side and saved a few Yuan. Conclusion It's an interesting little project in itself, and if you have an FT-17 in your cabinet, it will look good as a show of progression that might generate the occasional question as to why a French tank (if you put some markings of your own on it) is in Russian colours. Shame there were no decals though, but it's quite keenly priced, so you can forgive them that. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

Hi all! This month I started a new challenge, my very first kit in 1/16 scale and on top of that from World War One, the Takom 1/16 FT-17 Renault! At first I was reluctant to choose this kit, since I have no experience on that scale and I have read about WWI in the past, but never work a kit from that era, so I'm on uncharted waters in many ways. I order the kit with a book reference which I receive from Spruebrothers in just 4 days! (consider that I’m out of the States in the Caribbean, Puerto Rico). Started right away to look at the parts and get familiarized and also look at the information and pictures of the reference book. So I started now calling this a Char, not a panzer, not a tank, that’s the word for tank in French. Also found that this tank was call during WWI just as FT! The FT-17 name was later after the war due to the amount of variants and other French’s projects related. This Char was considered the first tank ! and was used in many conflicts and many countries, so I found a lot of references for the colors. I started right away with the engine, at first the pictures were difficult to find, and even I confuse the American version with the french one. The engine its just called 4 HP Renault engine, the American one is the BUDA HU engine. The building its very straight forward, some cleaning is needed, but is minimal, the fitting is perfect. I added the cabling, the sparks plugs and some metal tubing to represent it as much real as possible. Primer was next in black and for that task I used Krylon black color in a can. The cover is great and its dries in 15-20 minutes. (sorry for the bad pictures).

Renault FT-17 Riveted Turret Meng 1/35 Hi Guys This was built back in August last year, finished in about a week as it was such a fun build. Although it doesn't include the full interior of the previous cast turret release, the addition of a full vignette base more than makes up for it, especially as it retails for nearly half the price of the first release. I thought the multi-part nature of the hull and turret would make the fit iffy but it went together really well although the eagle-eyed among you might notice that the rear hatch on the turret is on the rear right instead of the rear left were it should be which is very much down to me not paying attention, not the kit. The base sand was airbrushed but I hand painted the green and brown camo as I couldn't face the masking job required. Wish I'd changed the coil springs for ones a bit thicker but I couldn't find anything suitable at the time. Hope you enjoy the shots A couple of the finished build before being based And the finished vignette Thanks for looking Andy

Société des Automobiles Renault FT Light Tank, sometimes also referred to as FT17 or Ft-17. Pics thanks to Dave.