[rockpaperscissor]

A little history: this fully tracked tiznao (improvised armored vehicle) popularly known as the Barbastro tank got its name from the town in which it was constructed in late '36 - early '37. A well equipped local machine shop which dubbed itself Grupo de Construccion Tanques de Barbastro (tank construction group of Barbastro) took on the task of designing and building the machine using largely repurposed materials. The tracks were taken from an agricultural tractor, the engine was reportedly a Ford V8 salvaged from a commercial truck. The hull was skinned with unhardened steel sheeting riveted to a steel framework. The turret was fully traversable and carried a 7.7 mm Hotchkiss machine gun. It is believed that crew was comprised of four men. Some time after completion, it moved under its own power to the Barbastro train station where it was loaded onto a flat bed car and transported to the town of Sarinena. Again, under its own power it drove to the nearby Eastern Army headquarters, and is believed to have taken part in the defense of the town. Its operational history ends there. Presumably it was captured by Nationalist forces and destroyed.

As tiznaos go, the Barbastro tank was very professional in appearance, and showed a high level of workmanship. The Republican Ministry of War was impressed enough to order the production of 3 more vehicles with heavier armor, a more powerful engine, and additional weaponry. Simultaneous production of the 3 new tanks began on schedule but was soon bogged down with red tape and supply issues, and the project was eventually abandoned.

Design methodology: the best guess estimated length of the real tank is 5.5 meters, and I will use that dimension to determine the scale of the model. I'm going to rely on the nearly side view period photo for my initial line drawings. Using Photoshop, I plan to enlarge the photo of the tank, and use the skew and distort functions to get a truer side view. Next, I'll create a new layer and do a black outline tracing of the hull right over the photo, and then move that tracing over to a new page. Ditto for the suspension.

More to come soon.