Modelik T-27

[CharlieC]

Tankettes were an enthusiasm by a number of countries in the 1920s and 30s. The idea that every soldier should be able to advance at high speed across a battlefield under armour protection in a cheap vehicle seemed to make sense to many military thinkers of the time.

The implementation of this idea unfortunately fell far short of the objectives of this concept. The tankettes generally were underpowered and thinly armoured. The operating environment for the crews was truely awful - the engine was wedged in between the crew members.
Imagine trying to drive a car from a seat inside the engine bay. The noise and heat inside the hull made it difficult for the crews to operate and communicate. The small internal volumes of the hulls meant that
the tankettes had very limited upgrade possibilities.

By WW2 most countries had abandoned the tankette as a fighting vehicle. Most of the existing vehicles were used as light tow and transport vehicles. The countries which used tankettes in operations - Italy, Japan and Poland usually did so because their industries/economies couldn't produce anything more useful.

The Russians had experimented with tankettes in the 1920s but did not produce any in quantity until they purchased some Carden-Loyd Mk IV tankettes in 1929 and mass produced a version of the Mk IV - the T-27.

Some 3300 T-27s were built from 1931-33. By the time of the GPW most T-27s were used as light tow vehicles although it's believed some were used in the battles in front of Moscow in 1941-2.

The Modelik kit comes on 2 pages of parts (it's a small model) with a page of description and instructions (in Polish) and a page of construction diagrams.

I've been meaning to build this thing for a while and with my usual lack of time a small, simple model is about all I can do at the moment.

Regards,

Charlie

[CharlieC]

I did my usual thng of buiding the tracks first - they are not very impressive so I'll document them later in the build.

The frame of the model is quite small and is quite floppy as built. I extensively reinforced the frame with triangular parts. (Just in case someone hasn't seen this trick - the easiest way to make these reinforcing pieces is to glue some graph paper to 1mm card - cutting accurate triangles is simple).

The images aren't good - but get the idea across I think.

Regards,

Charlie

[CharlieC]

The first step appears to be wrap the skin on the hull. I decided to add some rivet detail. The first attempt used cut out circles like Johnny did on his T-40. I wasn't very happy with the effect - I think with this very small vehicle I couldn't get small enough disks. Attempt 2 was to emboss the rivets - I usually add a small drop of acrylic varnish to the inside of the embossing to support it and stop the emboss detail vanishing by the relaxation of the card.

I think there may be an error with this model the angle of the front plate of the hull seems to be a bit shallow so the big wrap around piece which makes the top and bottom of the hull doesn't quite meet up. I fixed this by cutting the wrap around part into a couple of pieces and making the mismatch occur underneath the hull. I don't think this problem was caused by using scans to build because my calibration parts came out ok.

The rails on the side of the hull are locations for the large sponsons. The original used tabs - I couldn't see how to accurately locate the sponsons on the hull so I came up with this solution.

As an aside I'm coming around to the view that some of the standard techniques used in cardmodels really make them excessively hard to build. It may be ok for the gurus but a modest redesign of how parts are located could make it much easier to get good results for the average modeller.

Regards,

Charlie

[Clashster]

Enjoy your build threads, Charlie... informative both in history and technique. Good start, like the way the rivets look...

[Johnny]

Nice work Charlie!!

[Phil]

Looking forward to this Charlie. The Carden-Lloyd tankette is one of my favorites thanks to Fabrizio Prudenziati. The T-27 a close second.

[dansls1]

Good start! Neat trick on adding something to the inside of the rivet to keep it from relaxing.

Just out of curiousity, does this model look like it was hand-drawn or computer drawn?

[CharlieC]

Just out of curiousity, does this model look like it was hand-drawn or computer drawn?

Looks like it's computer drawn to me. My copy says it's a "new edition" or rather it says "nowa edycja". It had a small insert with some parts which must have been missing from the original release.

Regards,

Charlie

[CharlieC]

Modest amount of progress - the sponsons and hatch aren't glued on yet. I think the fit of the sponsons looks quite good compared to using tabs.

The marking on the side of the sponson apparently isn't a tactical marking but was a special marking used for the 1935 May Day parade in Moscow (www.battlefield.ru (http://www.battlefield.ru)).

Regards,

Charlie

[CharlieC]

That's the easy stuff done - now it gets interesting....

The T-27 was a close copy the Carden-Loyd suspension - the roadwheels were suspended on leaf springs and each pair of wheels was mounted on a pair of rails. I've built most of the roadwheels. My respect for those who build tiny has increased a lot.

I stuck reasonably close to the design (for a change). The wheels were a simple cylinder design - I did add some spacer disks internally so the disks representing the sides would sit correctly.

As usual the camera picked out the microbe sized bits I haven't coloured properly. I also think I need a set of 5 - 10mm punches

Regards,

Charlie

[CharlieC]

The roadwheel pairs were carried on a girder frame. Spent ages trying to get this right. The Modelik parts are pretty minimal for these assemblies. If I did this again I'd scratch build it from much tougher card. The idler wheels were just wrong in the kit - scratch built these as better emulations of the original.

The attachment points for many of these parts is very small so I used gel CA for these parts.

There are a couple of pieces yet to do - there is a bracket which acts as the track adjuster frame around the idlers.

Regards,

Charlie

[CharlieC]

It's always a "ta-da" moment when the model will stand on its own wheels. It's very gloomy here today so I'm having trouble getting decent images even outside.

Regards,

Charlie

[Clashster]

Looks good, Charlie, but I will keep my fingers crossed for a bright sunny day so I can get a better look! Thanks for the update!

[CharlieC]

Hate using flash - makes models look awful - but it's still raining and gloomy here....(apologise for the images now)

Added the drive sprockets and the return guides. The return guide must have been a major source of noise in these tanks - especially since the track was being dragged over a steel rail just outside where the crew sat.

Regards,

Charlie

[cgutzmer]

coming along nicely! Thanks for the pics :)

[CharlieC]

Tidying up......

Final pictures of T-27 - as usual flash makes the model look like rubbish.

I don't think I got much enjoyment from this model - the fit is reasonable without being really good. There are a number of engineering/design issues with the suspension which caused a certain amount of grief. The tracks were painful - gluing the tiny guide plates and grousers onto the track almost caused me to abandon the model.

I added some rivet detail using stick on rivets - the trick I used was to shape the card disk with an embossing tool to get approximately the right rivet shape. The results were better than just gluing disks onto the surface.

Regards,

Charlie

[jagolden01]

Charlie,

It finishes up to a nice little model. I wouldn't be disappointed.
I bought a nice Carden-Loyd from Barnetts Paper Models. Haven't built it yet. All the suspension pieces give me heebie-jeebies.

I agree that the camera flash always seems to make models lees attractive than they are.
When taking close up shots I now always hold a diffuser over the flash. In my case it's the cover from a used tub of margarine. Makes a big difference.

Thanks for the build. I PDF'd it to keep with the Carden-Loyd for When I get to that.

[CharlieC]

Start holding your breath for the Carden-Loyd........

Charlie

[Zathros]

They may have been lousy for battle but I wish I had one for yard work and winter plowing. It is really coming out great. the tracks look daunting.

[dansls1]

The resulting model came out very nice, even if you didn't get as much enjoyment out of it as you could have. Thanks for sharing ;)

[cgutzmer]

Those do look like some mind numbing tracks! I think the result turned out really well though. It will give me a push to get going on my armor build again :)
Chris