Gawrila waiting for invaders - Diorama 1/72

[PetrOs]

On a russian karopka.ru forum, there is a group build dedicated to the "Technics of Victory" - any soviet or lend-lease gun, vehicle, plane or ship is welcome. I decided to make a twin dioramas, and this is the first one. 

 

It is the first day of the german invasion of Soviet Union. A young junior lieutenant Gawrila waits with his 1936 built vintage T-26 tank in ambush for a german invader column. The enemy is still behind a small hill, but can be heard well, tank crew and a few troopers are full alert and waiting with tension for their first firefight. The tank is well hidden on a forest edge, a natural hole (maybe an old drainage trench or so) in the forest floor with a tree stump and old tree trunk covered with high grass and some bushes make a perfect hull down position, a tree on the side covering the infantrymen. 

 

It would be followed by the second diorama, with the same Gawrila, this time a colonel, leading his IS-2/ISU-152/T-34-85 or similar past a blasted german tank and the Unter den Linden Street shield in Berlin on the last day of war. This would be called "Gawrila fought the war to end!"

 

This mini-series is dedicated to all the people who fought this cruel war from the first day to the last.

 

However, why Gawrila? It is a common male name in USSR back in the 30es, and thus acting as a representation of an anonymous trooper. But there is also another reason. In the very famous russian novel "Twelve Chairs" (which I am re-reading now ), one of the secondary characters is a talentless poet, who is producing a mass of very similar poems for different magazines. The main subject is a man named Gawrila, and in these poems, he does a myriad of jobs - for the "Post courier" the poem starts as "Gawrila was the post employee, Gawrila brought the letters to", for "Fireman magazine" - "Gawrila was the fire fighter, Gawrila fires fought this night", for "The Hunter" - "Gawrila waited for a hare, Gawrila shot a hare today", and so on. So in russian folk language Gawrila is somewhat a kind of a guy who makes any kind of job, without really stanting out, but doing the job thoroughly. Thus I thought this name would pass well to the character, and also placing the names of both parts to the same poem rhyme was possible in both russian, german and english.

 

So back to the diorama. I will be using the T-26 from the S-Model kit. The kit quality is decent, and it represents a T-26 tank. However it is not a model 1933 as on the package, but is built 1936 or 1937. It has a large transmission hatch on the bow, extended driver booth, but still a "cylinder" turret with vertical walls and vertical walls of the upper hull. The kit looks to be well matching to available plans, and the fit is reported to be very good. Main drawback is a very fragile frame antenna, and a simplified running gear. First is not a big trouble, and the second can be rectified by mud and grass, as well as some simple modifications. The kit contains a brass turned barrel, but I had a RB models turned barrel, which looks slightly finer and sharper, so I used this one. 

 

Landscape would be 3D printed (to fit one of standard display case covers by Trumpeter, Tamiya or similar), then different landscape mats, trees, bushes, etc from model railroad supply, self-3d-printed stuff like stumps, would be applied. The figures would be from my "russian figure" box which contains over 30 different resin and plastic figure sets in 1/72

 

I painted a basic sketch to plan the diorama The sketch is just a general impression, for example the machine gunner is very likely to be either a DP gunner from Zvezda's Soviet Border Guards set, or a Maxim MG team from the appropriate Zvezda or Plastic Soldier set. 

 

 

 

The antenna is very fragile, and broke apart in several places. I tried to rescue it, but failed,  several pieces to clean up, and glue clumps looked ugly. Thus, I used it as a template and got some Albion Alloys nickel-silver 0.45mm rod to replace it. 20 minutes of bending and fitting, then cut away the plastic antenna from its "legs", and apply the metal part. I still need to add the loops which held the antenna to the legs, but this is an easy task using thin paper stripes and CA glue.

 

Another mod was the coaxial MG. it was not protruding that far as in kit, so I put an U-formed scrap plastic strip bit around the barrel back, thus shortening the MG by around 2mm, and drilled out the end with a 0.2mm bit. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 21, 2021 by PetrOs

[vytautas]

Sorry, no images are visible.

The problem maybe should be: the pictures are not visible because the site modellbauforen .de, on which are your pictures, requires registration, it is not a public resource. You see the pictures because you have access to them, but others not

 

Vytautas

Edited February 21, 2021 by vytautas

[PetrOs]

Thanks! I somehow thought it would fetch the image and upload it to this forum, not reference it from external. I switched to use pictures from karopka.ru, my original build thread in russian. That seems to work, at least from a different browser which is not logged in there.

[vytautas]

12 minutes ago, PetrOs said:

That seems to work, at least from a different browser which is not logged in there.

Yes, now everything is fine

 

Vytautas

[PetrOs]

So, slowly progressing with the build. The turret is nearly done, tiny loops holding the antenna frame are done. Just both hatches and the antenna inlet are missing yet. Right hatch will be open, with commander seated on its side. Left hatch would be closed, as the gunner is already at his sights. Antenna inlet would be 0.3mm wire.

 

The basic hull form is there, but lots of details are to be done. I will make the running gear separate by now, and only add it after painting.

 

Comparing the kit to the plans, i am quite sure the kit is a 1935 manufactured machine. It has large transmission hatch and drivers booth added as in 1935, but still has square commanders hatch which were replaced by round one with AA turret in 1936. 

 

 

[Vaastav]

The turret looks like that of a BT. 

Nice save with the antenna

[PetrOs]

Thanks!

 

The progress is slow, as founding my own industrial 3d printing company takes 10-15 hours/day from me.... Tracks are assembled, but not glued to the hull now.  Some small parts like armored light, exhaust, etc, and I can go on painting. 

Track is simplified, the road wheels should be double. But they would be barely visible in grass. Maybe I will put a black decal strip on them or so to simulate the gap. Design like, say, trumpeter's SU-152 with inner wheels cast to track, and outer wheels then added would have been better.

 

The turrets of T-26 and BT-7 were interchangeable, only difference were pistol ports on the turret sides - one used a plug and chain cover, and another a flap, due to production factory simplifications.

 

 

[PetrOs]

Founding my own 3D print company takes a lot of time, so not much time to build now. However, as I had a few free hours, I decided to make the base and the cover. The base is 15x15cm landscape, and 18x18cm outside, and will be printed in black PLA filament. The cover is split in 3 parts (legs + top basic structure, top middle level, and top upper level) and will be printed in steel PLA. 2mm plexiglass sheet will be used as the glazing. 

 

The base sides will be laminated with wood sheet (most likely 0.5mm tineo wood), the landscape will be done with grass mats, trees, different objects, etc...

 

Edited March 31, 2021 by PetrOs

[PetrOs]

I concentrated on building the base and display case. I printed them on my Creality Ender 3 with PLA filament. The frame was a bit thin, so the higher - the worse surface on the vertical posts. Plus some strange stringing on regular intervals. Nothing some putty and sandpaper cant fix .

 

 

I assembled the frame, leaving the upper layer (which locks the plexiglass on top) attached only on one side, before sanding.

 

 

On the base, 2 corners lifted a bit, and horizontal surfaces were probably too thin for low infill, so some gaps happened. So I glued the base to a flat 2mm polystirol sheet, filled and sanded the corners, corrected the surfaces, and added tineo wood veneer.

 

I found some paints stored away at least 10 years ago, most were dry, but some ok. They were me too suspicious to use on a model, but I thought that I could sand them here away if it goes wrong. I took a bottle of Gunze black, and applied it. then some future, then modelmaster flat matte. Then I inserted the top plexiglas part, finally attached the top layer, sanded, painted black, which is now drying. Vertical plexiglas panels are inserted from below, and I would only do it when close to be completed.