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Austin Armoured Car 3rd series, Don Army of Don Republic, Armed Forces of South Russia (White Army) - 1919


Botan

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When Great War ended, Western front went silent and hell of trenches was over. But in Central and Eastern Europe peace was still far, far away, on the graves of Empires dozens of a new nations emerges and immediately clashed in border conflicts with each other, and with  revolutions, counter-revolutions and uprisings. From North Africa to Vladivostok and from Middle East up to Finland people keep fighting. I was really surprised when I found out how many conflict had place immediately after WWI, these days those are mostly forgotten, overshadowed by both World Wars.

 

Masterbox Austin 3rd series is a nice kit of this Great War armoured car, but it have serious problem. Too many interesting camouflages, German Freikorps, Austro-Hungarian, Ukrainian, Bolsheviks, Russian White movements, Finnish... from the other hand, there is no description aside a flag, so I had made some research. 

 

Finaaly I decided to go with "Атаман Богаевский" - "Ataman Bogaevskiy" car from 1919, belonging to the the Don Army of Don Republic, also know as Almighty Don Host, created by Don Cossacks. In 1919 it become a part of Armed Forces of South Russia, which also included  the Volunteer Army (which was renamed the Caucasian Volunteer Army), the Crimean-Azov Army, the Forces of Northern Caucasus and the Army of Turkestan. Those were White forces during Russian Civil War.

It it worth to know, that Imperial Russia had second place in number of armoured car in service, with United Kingdom being first.

 

Austin21.jpg

 

Photo, according to wikipedia description, is in public domain.

 

I will wrote about symbol and name of this particular car and Austin cars in Russia, but in later posts.

 

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Welcome to the GB ! And with a really fascinating subject that I'm very pleased to see here

The almost total lack of knowledge in the West of the complicated events that took part after WW1 in that part of the world is something that I hope will one day be put to rest. I admit of having been guilty myself and when I first realised how much fighting followed the official end of the war my perception changed completely. I have to say that a lot of those events explain quite a bit of what followed later, almost to our days...

I'm really looking forward to the history of this armoured car !

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Well this is a subject I'm hugely ignorant of, not only in terms of the subject itself but also in terms of the subsequent fighting in the east post the armistice, thanks Botan for bringing it to our attention.

 

I look forward to seeing the outcome of this thread.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Finally I got time to move project forward.

 

But before that, a research time! Fortunately I found  some ready ideas on "On The Way!" site. I know NorthStarModels make a PE set, but I decided to make some things myself.

Aside that, after closer inspection of known photo I have noticed another things to do or think about.

 

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  1. Car on photo have search light on one turret, and those are not included in kit. I'm lucky here, because Roden 1/72 Rolls-Royce armoured car have such lights, and there is single leftover on sprues.
  2. So far my biggest concern. According to most sources, including even a colour scheme on model box (down left corner on the box back), a background on Don Army marking should be yellow, but it is white on kit decals. I do not know yet how to fix it.
  3. There is some weird shadow on car door, which is not included in kit scheme. I assume this is just some area overpainted with darker paint.
  4. There are some bright streaks, maybe car and some camouflage? Could those be just some artifacts on photography?
  5. Most cars on photographies and kit have full fenders, with cover up to the hull,  but that one lacks a part near to hull.

I also wonder, how to paint it. I wonder, if armoured cars produced in Britain in 1917/1918 had the same brown colour, as tanks? I also wonder, how chassis should be painted then, grey? It is quite hard to find sources about, I would be glad for any advice.

 

Going back to plastic, so far I keep removing striations from hull and I have done a bit of chassis. I found a few minor sinkholes, so nothing problematic.

 

29693616870625000441.png

 

Edited by Botan
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Glad to see this kit started !

I unofrtunately can't help with the doubts on the colour scheme, hopefully some of our resident armour modellers will be able to give some advice.

Regarding the yellow background on the decal, you could print this on clear decal paper and apply the result on top of the kit decal. Yellow will not really show on other colours but will be well visible on the white background

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8 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

Regarding the yellow background on the decal, you could print this on clear decal paper and apply the result on top of the kit decal. Yellow will not really show on other colours but will be well visible on the white background 

 

Good idea, I also can cut yellow parts from leftover decals I have.

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Botan, good preliminary research on your specific vehicle. 

 

For me, the dark patch on the door could indicate a marking from previous owner and was painted over.  If true that must mean the overall vehicle was not repainted as they were not able to match the overall paint colour of the body?   For undersides, I think just the same colour as I'm not aware of there being in use some kind of special undercoating utilized back in those days.  Besides which, dirtying up the undersides will hide/alter whatever paint colour is chosen anyways.

 

The light streaks, I doubt is camou because it looks too restrained - schemes from back then were very flamboyant.  Is likely as you say, something on the photograph, or even the original negative has some damage to it.

 

regards,

Jack

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  • 3 weeks later...

Time for update.

 

I have thinned bottom edges of the engine compartment's side panels.

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Current state of the kit.

 

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Underside of the kit is mostly done. Unfortunately, I haven't found a photo of of 3rd series turned upside down, and I do not known differences between series in that area, so I will just add some bits to back axis basing on NorthStarModel PE instruction. Also I removed striations from car body, removed mould handles, drilled holes for wires, exhaust and lungs on turrets and fixed some sinkholes and/or flashes/moved mould on armoured covers and other parts.

 

I also started turrets, but those need more corrections. I will add rings under and on turrets, remade machine guns covers, close small gaps between turrets and hull, add plates with rivets on the turrets back and make barrels out of brass pipes. Fenders needs thinning and addition of missing rod braces.

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12 hours ago, Giorgio N said:

As I have never built one such machine I have to ask, how do you paint the details on the underside ? Is it easy to pick the details with all the parts in place ?

 

It differs between kits and ... planned amount of mud. In this case I will airbrush base colour, hand paint details, which seems to be accessible in this case, and then put some weathering, which will cover problematic places, if I find those. I think I'm going to glue wheels, fenders and body to chassis after painting, but to be honest I haven't thought thoroughly about that at this point

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