Russian railgun train - Free Model Contest #5

[Darwin]

Hours of work on details that no one is ever likely to notice. A new definition of insanity? You don't have to be crazy to be a modeler, but it helps. The texturing on this kit is great.

[Darwin]

HO scale Zlin. In this scale, compound curve fenders are tricky, but they can be tamed.

[Kevin WS]

Last three posts - all very splendid!

Great work!!!!!

[Darwin]

What better for an armored car to protect the train than an armored car? I'm working with another freebie model from the same designer.
https://vk.com/robototehnikpaper?z=p...3134_201381877
Two obvious problems to begin with. First, the armored car is designed for a 1:50 scale. After reducing to 1:87, the fiddly parts are just about impossible....but I'll give it the best that my eyesight will allow. The second is that the model is designed for a Russian track gauge, not European, so I need to make a little on-the-fly redesign when I get to that part.

Actually, this idea for providing some armored protection for the train is not without precedent. Quite often the name of the game was improvization, with a flatcar load of armored car, tank, or even field gun pushed ahead of the engine with the firepower pointed forward. As far as the chain drive...I figure the Soviets would throw anything that could fire a projectile at the Axis forces....and it IS my world I'm creating.

I managed to get this far without disaster...but a teeny little field gun is coming up, and I can barely focus on the little bitty pieces that make it up.

[Marcin Jakubiec]

Well. H0 is to small for me, but whem I'm lookin' at your photos, the only thing I wanna say is: "Good work!!!"

[CharlieC]

Oops - major anachronism - you picked the Mannesman-Mulag model which dates from 1914. It was intended as a fire support vehicle for the Tsarist Army
first armoured car unit. The symbol on the side is that of the Tsarist armoured car forces. If you really want a WW2 Russian armoured car the choice is pretty narrow - probably only a BA-64 is reasonable.

Charlie

[Darwin]

Charlie, I realized that the armored car would be an anachronism, but covered it with the statement that in my world, the Soviets would throw anything at the Germans that they could scrape up, including from museums and the front lawns of their Vets Memorial building equivalents. After doing a bit more looking through Sergey's kits, maybe the Zis-5 in kit no. 34 would be a bit more realistic for a real world scene. The canon it is packing would give a more authoritative punch....and not having chain drive would be a hell of a lot easier to build. The BA-64 would have been better, but as much as possible I'm trying to limit the rolling stock and vehicles to 'free' kits. And, if time permits, maybe having a T-34 leading the parade would be even better.

If truth be known, I kinda figured the anachronism might be enough to get a couple of comments going in this thread. Sheesh....over 4500 views, and only a handfull of responses. How's a guy gonna learn if the room is silent?

[Kevin WS]

It's fine. Out of the museum and into the train! Best possible use!

Carry on with the good work!

I have a special interest in armored trains having been exposed to armoured rail vehicles, and as a result being fascinated by their utter impracticality! In my opinion anyway!

The concept of an armored vehicle on a flatbed seems far better, especially if dismountability is an option.

[Darwin]

Time to be asking for a bit of help from members out there who are familiar with Sergi's kits. The kit for the WWI armored car/flatcar is supposed to be 1:50 scale. So, I resized to 57 percent, which should make it 1:87 (HO) scale to agree with the railgun kit. When making the armored car, it struck me as being larger than I would expect when comparing to the truck in the railgun kit. Now that my attention is on the flatcar, again it appears to be larger than it should be. The bumpers of the flatcar are a bit over 21 mm apart. The bumpers on the railgun cars are fairly consistent at 18 mm apart. If nothing else, over the years between 1914 and 1939 the bumpers should remain unchanged so that the older railcars would remain usable. Doing a bit of math, the if I reduce the supposed HO-size cars to 87%, the flatcar bumpers will line up with the railgun kit, and the width of the flatcar will be consistent with the width of the railgun cars. It appears to me that the first reduction of the armored car kit resulted in OO scale, not HO scale. Which means that the scale of the unaltered kit is larger than 1:50. Has anyone else noted a problem with Sergey's kits being larger than the stated scale? I have a high confidence that the Railgun kit is actually 1:87, as the wheel width and car width of the paper models are right on when compared to my plastic HO cars. In any event, I'm going to resize the flatcar parts page yet again, Even after resizing, the wheels will still be a bit wider apart than the railgun kit. That can likely be explained by difference between European and Russian track gauges.

[CharlieC]

I just checked the TG tank model - the Russian Battlefield website says the original tank was 6.5m long, 2.81m wide. Checking the model it should be 130mm at 1:50 - it is in fact 148.4mm. The width should be 56.2mm, it is 64.4. So the model seems to be 1:43.8 rather than the claimed 1:50.

Charlie