Hobbyboss T-18 Light Tank

[Andy Moore]

T-18 Light Tank Model 1927

Hobbyboss 1/35

It occurred to me recently that, what with all the Bandai Star Wars kits I've been doing recently, it's been a while since I've done an armour build on here. In fact I think the last one was the SS-23 and that was over a year ago. Time to change that then, and something Soviet and inter-war seems like a good idea.

This is the new Hobbyboss T-18, which was the first all Russian tank, albeit heavily based on the French FT. It's a pretty standard Hobbyboss kit, moulded in sand coloured styrene with non-working indi links and a splash of PE.

This isn't meant to be an in-box review (I'm sure Mike will be doing a proper one soon), but I'll post some sprue shots so you've got something to look at until I start cutting plastic.

It all comes in a smallish box (12" x 8" if you're curious) with just four sprues for the tank and another 2 for the tracks. There's a separate lower hull, upper hull and turret, and a small sheet of PE.

Sprue A's got some of the hull panels and the fenders, along with a few details including, annoyingly, a solid moulded headlight. It's not even moulded with a separate solid lens, which would at least have made swapping it for a clear replacement easier. Rather it's got the housing and lens as a single solid piece, so to replace it I'll have to drill it out.

Not much on sprue B. Just the turret base and main hatch. It looks like the sprue's been designed to be modifiable to take alternate part for future releases. I seem to recall Hobbyboss having more than one version listed in the 2016 catalogue.

Two sprue D's carrying duplicate parts for the running gear.

Two sprue T's (T for track, get it... oh, ever mind). Indi links aren't everyone's cup of char, nor mine for that matter, but these don't look too bad. No separate guide horns or pads to add, and the runs are only 51 links long.

The single piece lower hull...

... and the upper hull and turret.

Last up there's the small PE sheet. Mainly the perforated shroud that will need bending to a curved profile. There's no jig provided for that, so I'll probably end up doing it round a knife handle or pencil. I don't like the look of the tiny individual bolt heads. Don't know where they go yet, but I'll more than likely substitute some Meng bolt heads for them.

And that's it. No decals as there's only one scheme provided, and it carries no markings. From a cursory glance everything looks well moulded. I've not really started checking references regarding accuracy, but I'll get on to that in the build. It looks like a T-18 which is the main thing.

And, just so you know, this is a tiny tank. How tiny... this tiny

More soon

Andy

[FrancisGL]

A very interesting vehicle, nice figure too envy... , cheers Andy

[Andy Moore]

A very interesting vehicle, nice figure too envy... , cheers Andy

Thanks Francis. The figure's from a KV-5 I built a couple of years ago.

I made a start on the T-18 last night, with a bit of detailing on the suspension mounts. There are four bolts round the top of the towers and they're a bit indistinct due to the way the parts are moulded. I sliced them off and replaced them with 0.8mm bolt heads from Meng.

These were the smallest size from the Meng set, but they're a bit too big really. They'll do though, and they add a bit more sharpness and detail to the parts.

That brings us on to the suspension itself, which is clearly a bit simplified

The bottom of the suspension towers are fluted, and the wheel mounts are solid, non-pivoting bars. These are wrong, but it's hard to get a clear idea on how they should be.

Most period photos show a scalloped cut-out on the bottom of the towers

The one below is a newly fabricated replica but looks to have a broadly similar suspension layout to the period photos

This one though is a restoration job, although it looks like the suspension is a new fabrication. This one lacks the extra forward road wheel, and generally looks quite simplified and probably not that accurate

It also lacks the extra return roller between the forward two mounted on the leaf spring. As I understood it, this was a trait of the T-16 prototype, while the production T-18 had the extra roller and the extra road wheel with the angled shock, so I'm presuming this is actually a restored T-16, despite being described as a T-18

In the last period shot above, with the column of T-18's, the front tank also lacks the extra return roller, and has a different cutout in the turret and lower mounted turret hatch so I'm guessing that it may well be a T-16 as well.

Interestingly, this site says the T-18 on display in the Moscow Central Museum of Armed Forces is the only original one with accurate, unrestored suspension. However this one looks more like a T-16 too, but I could well be wrong. The square blocks on the wheel mounting bars are clearly non-pivoting, and match the way this area has been done in the kit

The box art actually matches the period photos quite well, with the scalloped cut-outs, although I think the artist may have forgotten an important element. Who knew that Russia invented an anti-grav tank in the 1920's!

Anyway, the long and short of all this is the kit suspension isn't entirely accurate but I'm going to leave it as it is because a. you can't see it that much with the wheels in place, b. I've already attached some of the units and c. there's a cold beer in the fridge and that's more tempting than re-working some suspension.

Andy

Edited July 23, 2016 by AndyRM101

[Yeoman1942]

It really is tiny, sure you will make a beautiful job of it.

[KAYELL]

Hi Andy

Looks like a nice little kit, no doubt it will end up a masterpiece.

My parc models effort became bin fodder!

Look forward to seeing this develop.

Cheers

K

[Nigel Heath]

Looking forward to this one coming together.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Great subject.....I'm definitely in.

[FrancisGL]

Really nice information, , cheers Andy

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Found a couple of plausibly useful images in my virtual collection (do not trust the drawing for anything beyond general layout as I had to skew it in PS to make it presentable, so the proportions are out):

The scalloping looks markedly less pronounced in this picturet than it does in your first one.....Here it almost looks like a cylinder with a slot cut in the end:

Perhaps there was some evolution to the design of the bogeys, simple pivots at first, then cut out slots, then scalloping

[Andy Moore]

Perhaps there was some evolution to the design of the bogeys, simple pivots at first, then cut out slots, then scalloping

Thanks for the images. I think you're right, the design must have evolved during the production life of the tank. The one in the photo looks far more like the kit representation than the images I've found, although I am curious about the square plates that appear on top of the suspension towers as they show up in some of my ref pics too. The line drawing looks pretty much bang on to what Hobbyboss have moulded, apart from the extra return roller. I think it's a case of the usual Trumpyboss method of finding a set of drawings, assuming they're 100% accurate and basing the tooling on them.

I wouldn't be surprised if someone brings out some resin replacements eventually.

The suspension is finished now, unless I do add those square plates to the tops. It all seems to sit squarely on the ground, which is good as there's no way of adjusting the sit other than bending the wheel mounts.

The rear panel has a perforated photo etch screen added, but the panel has no cut-out, making the perforations a bit useless

I marked out the area behind the perforations, drilled round the edges and cut the aperture out

At least it look like there's an open area behind the panel now. You can't really see anything through it, but I'll paint the inside of the hull black just in case. Hopefully someone will release an engine and interior set for this. It's an ideal subject for a detailed interior, with the large hatch at the front.

The four tabs on the edges of the PE panel will be bent around the sides of the hull when the rear panel is properly attached. They'll need some bolt heads adding, which is what the 8 tiny bolts on the PE fret are for. I'll be using ones from the Meng set instead

Andy

Edited July 23, 2016 by AndyRM101

[FrancisGL]

NIce work wit PE, , cheers Andy

[The_Lancaster]

Just picked up on this one, can't resist! Gotta watch!

[Andy Moore]

Well, progress on this is painfully slow at the moment, but some work has happened over the last couple of days.

One of the fenders has been added to the upper hull. Hobbyboss have managed to make these impressively thin, but I filed the edges down a little more anyway. No doubt there will be PE replacements at some point but the styrene parts are perfectly fine. The upper hull is still unglued at this point, as I want to make up the track runs before fitting it.

The right hand fender bracket has had the horn attached and a cable running into the hull. The horn comes drilled but with quite thick edges, so it was reamed out with drill bits and scalpel blades until it looked more in scale

The left hand bracket holds the headlight, which is a solid piece in the kit. I hollowed out the light with a large drill bit, then scrounged a lens from a Miniart dozer. The lens still needs a bit of sanding and beveling on the edge to better sit in the concave top of the light

And lastly, and just because it amuses me (I know, simple things and all that), here's a shot of the T-18 against a T-15. Only three digits away in name, but rather further away in size

Andy

[FrancisGL]

I like a lot tiny details you make, cheers Andy

[Will Vale]

I hadn't realised quite how small this was on Flickr, the picture of the replica was quite surprising.

I have no idea how you got Prince Charles to sit in it for the first scale photo either

Cheers,

Will

[Andy Moore]

I have no idea how you got Prince Charles to sit in it for the first scale photo either

Well he's got to be useful for something, even if it's only as a scale reference for a model

Most of the main assembly is done now. In truth it's a pretty simple kit, and as such a little over priced. It's nicely detailed though, so I'm not complaining (much). The upper hull is still separate at the moment. I'll give the lower hull and running gear a base coat before building up the track runs.

Colour wise I'm going to go with something 4BO based, albeit quite faded. Being from the late 20's - early 30's the original colour would have pre-dated 3B AU which was introduced in the mid 30's before being replaced by 4BO. According to one of Mig J's books at least, the green used before 3B AU was visually similar to 4BO.

I'm not sure which paints I'll be using at the moment, and I'm currently trying to collate the seemingly endless collection of green paints I've accumulated over the years. I've never been happy with the accuracy of the swatches that manufactures put in their paint charts, so I'm making some of my own starting with AMMO, which I'll post here in case it's of use to anyone.

This isn't all the greens they do, just the ones I've got, and I'm only doing greens as that's the colour I use more than any other (and also the colour that always seems inaccurate on paint charts)

These are scans of paint chips sprayed to an opaque coverage on white plastic card. They had some minor colour correction to best visually match the original paint chips. The adjustment was done on my desk top monitor, but I cross referenced the results on my laptop screen and iPad, and I'm happy that they're close enough to the original paint chips to be considered accurate, but they may look different depending on the screen you view them on.

I'll hopefully do the same for greens from Vallejo, Tamiya, Gunze and any others I find knocking about. When I do, I'll post them on Britmodeller somewhere. As I said, I'll just be doing greens for now, but maybe in time I'll get around to doing other colours as well. In the mean time this one's here for anyone that wants it.

Andy

[FrancisGL]

Smart idea!!!, always seems that I have the green that I need (and that have at least 20 ..), cheers Andy

[Carius]

Great progress my friend.

Cheers

[Sgt.Squarehead]

The 4BO looks very brown in those chips.....The French Forest Green strikes me as more promising at first glance.

[Andy Moore]

The 4BO looks very brown in those chips.....The French Forest Green strikes me as more promising at first glance.

I'd say it's a dark yellowish green. There's probably a hint of brown in there, depending on how you're viewing it. The Olive drab shades are certainly quite brown. I thought of either going with the Forest Green as a base and the French Pale Green as a highlight, or a 4BO base and Light Green Khaki highlight. I think either would work depending on whether you wanted a warmer or cooler 4BO.

This is how it's looking now. I went with the AMMO 4BO/Light Green Khaki combo on the lower hull, but these went over a base/primer of Gunze 303 green, at least until I ran out of it and had to switch to Gunze 58 Interior Green, and those underlying colours affect the tone of the top coat. I also added some of the Olive Drab modulation colours here and there to give it a bit of shading and variation

At this point I decided I wanted to add a bit more of a yellow tone to the green, so I gave it all a light over-spray with Vallejo Parched Grass primer. This killed some of the shading in the finish, but I'm not that bothered about that. I'm only spraying the lower hull now as it'll be hard to get at when the tracks are fitted, and a lot of this area will be weathered anyway, so the final finish isn't critical. The effect of the parched grass isn't that obvious in the shot as the camera lights tend to flatten any subtlety in the finish, but it looks more noticeable in person

When the upper hull is on I might use the parched grass as the main base coat and build the tones up from there. I've used it before as a base coat on a BA-64 and it works quite well as a faded 4BO

Andy

[Nigel Heath]

You Sir are a true artist.

[Andy Moore]

Thanks Nigel

Only a bit of progress over the weekend. The tracks are built up. They were a bit fiddly but went together in the end, although I had to shorten the runs from the recommended 51 links to 50, as there was a little too much sag with the extra one. There's just the left run on here as it's still drying. The right one was done earlier. I'll need to paint and install these before adding the upper hull, as there isn't enough room to fit them after as the gap between the top of the runs and the fenders is too close

I've also sponged on some different green tones over the lower hull and running gear to break the finish up a little. Some of this will get toned down with over-sprays, although I might add some paler tones first

Andy

[FrancisGL]

Coming along nicely... , cheers Andy

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Really appreciate you taking the time to describe each step.....A pleasure & an education all in one!

[KAYELL]

Hi andy

Love the idea of sponging the lower hull...good effect

Cheers

Keith