ARL-44 'The Last French Heavy Tank'

[sardaukar]

Hello everybody

 

I have a few French tanks in the stash and this seemed like a good excuse to actually build one.

 

This is a resin kit from Planet Models Military Vehicle which seems to be CMK.

 

I bought this on a whim in Hannants. After watching the Girls und Panzer series and films I have been adding the tanks featured to the stash, the majority are common models anyway which I already had but I was aware of a few missing ones I knew there isnt currently a plastic ARL-44 in 1/72 so resin was the way to go.

 

Dont worry it wont be an Anime tank I will do it as a French vehicle.

 

I cracked open the box today so here are some pics.

 

 

There are some big chunks of resin in there, with decals for two different paint schemes (one fictitious). Which ever way I go it looks like I need to find out what French artillery green is in Vallejo Model Air.

 

I also need to finish off my less than a tenner group builds...

 

Happy Building everyone.

[Steben]

To my understanding it is quite an olive green close to drab. Haven't seen (much of) that early 40 50 ties tricolour though.

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Two of these in the build. This should be fun welcome aboard. 

[Wez]

16 minutes ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Two of these in the build. This should be fun welcome aboard. 

You're right Dennis, they're like busses,
nothing for ages then two come along at once!

 

Good to see this, good luck.

[Mig Eater]

Yep I'm making its bigger 1/35 brother, I'm planing to use AK's French Army Green paint which (going by my colour chart) looks similar to Vallejo's US Dark Green (71.289).

Edited July 15, 2021 by Mig Eater

[sardaukar]

3 hours ago, Steben said:

To my understanding it is quite an olive green close to drab. Haven't seen (much of) that early 40 50 ties tricolour though.

I never realised this was such a can of worms. What colour is french artillery green?

 

I thought I better take a look at the colour scheme to see if I needed to order anything.  

 

After a bit of research it seems humbrol used to make a French artillery green for a brief period some years ago. I eventually found a colour chart that converts it to Vallejo model colour Russian uniform green. 70.924 and like you said it's more of a drab olive, and I actually have a bottle of this in the stash. It's a shame as I quite liked the idea of an almost midori green that it looks like in the instructions.

 

I'll mull it over a bit while building and do some more research, what colour was post war French armour?

[sardaukar]

1 hour ago, Wez said:

You're right Dennis, they're like busses,
nothing for ages then two come along at once!

 

Good to see this, good luck.

 

Jump on the last French heavy to Saumur.

[sardaukar]

41 minutes ago, Mig Eater said:

Yep I'm making its bigger 1/35 bother, I'm planing to use AK's French Army Green paint which (going by my colour chart) looks similar to Vallejo's US Dark Green (71.289).

 

Looks like a nice model, I don't have the room for 1/35. I had a look at the instructions for your one on scalemates. Which feature one in French Blue which seems an interesting colour for a tank.

[sardaukar]

1 hour ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

Two of these in the build. This should be fun welcome aboard. 

 

Ah I never noticed as the other was already on the second page when I posted.

 

Nevermind it's 1/72nd and in resin so a very different build.

 

This is only my second ever resin build much more filling and fixing needed however the mouldings do look great.

[Mig Eater]

38 minutes ago, sardaukar said:

 

I had a look at the instructions for your one on scalemates. Which feature one in French Blue which seems an interesting colour for a tank.

French Blue was used on tanks for awhile post WW1, Amusing Hobby's recommendation to use it on the ARL 44 comes from the game World of Tanks where all the French tanks (FT-17 to AMX-30) use French Blue as a way to easily differentiate them from the other nations with green tanks. Amusing Hobby regularly copies World of Tanks for paint schemes & markings, they have even released kits based on some of the fictitious tank designs in the game.

 

Edited July 15, 2021 by Mig Eater

[sardaukar]

3 minutes ago, Mig Eater said:

French Blue was used on tanks for awhile post WW1, Amusing Hobby's recommendation for use it on the ARL 44 comes from the game World of Tanks where all the French tanks (FT-17 to AMX-30) use French Blue as the main colour as a way to easily differentiate them from the other nations with green tanks. Amusing Hobby regularly copies World of Tanks for paint schemes & markings, they have even released kits based on some of the fictitious tank designs in the game.

 

 

Aha, that explains it, I don't mind the world of tanks link if it gets the kits made and it gets more people into the hobby. But do they actually reference WoT as the inspiration for the colour scheme?

 

I've been more of a war thunder guy which has been responsible for a few kits in my stash. As mentioned before watching girls und panzer on netflix has been an inspiration for a few more purchases. I see platz has an ARL-44 kit for girls und panzer more than likely the amusing models kit with custom decals.

[Steben]

10 hours ago, sardaukar said:

I never realised this was such a can of worms. What colour is french artillery green?

 

I thought I better take a look at the colour scheme to see if I needed to order anything.  

 

After a bit of research it seems humbrol used to make a French artillery green for a brief period some years ago. I eventually found a colour chart that converts it to Vallejo model colour Russian uniform green. 70.924 and like you said it's more of a drab olive, and I actually have a bottle of this in the stash. It's a shame as I quite liked the idea of an almost midori green that it looks like in the instructions.

 

I'll mull it over a bit while building and do some more research, what colour was post war French armour?

EBR Panhard in Saumur Museum. This is what I think of a very probable rendition of early post war French dark green. Several french vehicles have this colour at the museum.
It's not far away from SCC15 / British OD.

As with many post war colours, things get a bit vague until regulations and directives became omnipresent in a organised cold war era.
The Belgian Army used paint used by the supplier of vehicles. US tanks were OD, Leo 1s were in RAL6014 and even in the 70ties dark bronze green was proscribed for UK delivered vehicles. From late 70ties into 80ties IRR Green became the main paint, not unlike many European based NATO countries. Germany, Netherlands and Italy (and Switzerland) still used RAL6014 but in IRR version. Austria RAL7013.
UK's Nato green, Belgian Nato green and French Nato green all look very alike, but none are exactly the same since they age very quickly...

YET ... IRR paint was not used in 1950ties.

Edited July 15, 2021 by Steben

[Steben]

AMX 50B and ARL44 in Saumur

[sardaukar]

19 hours ago, Steben said:

EBR Panhard in Saumur Museum. This is what I think of a very probable rendition of early post war French dark green. Several french vehicles have this colour at the museum.
It's not far away from SCC15 / British OD.

As with many post war colours, things get a bit vague until regulations and directives became omnipresent in a organised cold war era.
The Belgian Army used paint used by the supplier of vehicles. US tanks were OD, Leo 1s were in RAL6014 and even in the 70ties dark bronze green was proscribed for UK delivered vehicles. From late 70ties into 80ties IRR Green became the main paint, not unlike many European based NATO countries. Germany, Netherlands and Italy (and Switzerland) still used RAL6014 but in IRR version. Austria RAL7013.
UK's Nato green, Belgian Nato green and French Nato green all look very alike, but none are exactly the same since they age very quickly...

YET ... IRR paint was not used in 1950ties.

 

Thanks for the info, that EBR looks like a good reference.

[Steben]

A start around vallejo 70.888 oplive grey might work. My 5 cents.

[JOCKNEY]

Hi @sardaukar

Have you managed to make a start on this one yet ?

Cheers Pat 

[sardaukar]

On 06/09/2021 at 14:55, JOCKNEY said:

Hi @sardaukar

Have you managed to make a start on this one yet ?

Cheers Pat 

 

better late than never...

[sardaukar]

With two weeks to go, I thought I better get the finger out on this one. especially as I just signed up for the Nordic 2 build.

 

pics show progress best.

 

 

Putting together the hull kinda put me off the kit and is why I've been gluing plastic instead of resin the last couple of months. This is my first resin kit of this complexity and it really isn't that complex, however the hull joints did need a bit of filling after I'd removed the sprue gates. The inside ends of the track suffers from some mould lines/slippage which while attempting to clean up can result in the end of the track breaking off, however I've realised most of this wont be visible anyway as it will either be under the fenders or under the tank itself.

 

A few more hours should get the build finished. I'm building it pretty much as is.

 

Having the tracks on the hull and the turret installed kinda shows how big a beast this was, one Revell 1/72 Cromwell for comparison.

 

 

 

 

Cheers

 

Calum

[sardaukar]

Last post for sunday night on this. I've just dry fitted the barrel and mantlet and that makes it look even bigger. Seriously chonky. 

 

[sardaukar]

hello all

 

A few more hours tonight and I have all sub assemblies ready to paint.

 

 

 

I made a mistake I should've gone without attaching the tracks until after painting, that way I could've attached the fenders exhaust etc before painting. Resin I've noticed takes superglue particularly well and those track units aren't coming off easily so I'm stuck with doing it this way.

 

The cleaning rods?? aren't included so I used some micro rod which worked well and doesn't need to be straightened like wire would. The machine gun is very fine, it will be a minor miracle if that stays on the model.

 

The kit actually went together pretty quickly  but I really dont like working with superglue much. Now if they could only create a pair of tweezers that wouldnt stick to superglue it would be much easier.  

[sardaukar]

No pics yet but the release agent on this kit is proving a huge pain i've cleaned it twice and the pain still wont stick to certain parts. Fairy liquid ain't cutting it.