WWII Soviet Tank Commander bust

[Trex]

I recently bought a bust from Gordon Mitchell (aka Grod).
It's a big bust of a WWII Soviet tank commander in 1/9 scale sculpted by Pavol Ovecka (aka Offo).

Since it's a small production bust, I thought a review would be useful for others interested to see what to expect from it.

The thing that made me buy this, is that it's one of the rare occasions where a sculptor tries to "tell a story" with his bust, even though a very simple one:
A T-34/85 tank commander is having a relaxing break and smoking a cigarette while leaning on his tank cupola.

INTRODUCTION

The kit comes in a plain carton box without any kind of illustration on it.
It contains 9 parts cast in light yellow resin, all of them wrapped in bubble wrap.
The kit arrived in good condition and nothing was broken, but IMHO adding some foam in the box would provide better protection.

In the picture above you can see the main 8 kit pieces:
Head, torso, hands, helmet strap, cupola and 2 parts for the hatch (static and moving).
There is also another very small part not shown above, it's for the cigarette he's supposed to be holding in his right hand.

The brown stuff on the parts is a material known as Blue Tack or Patafix.
It has minimum adhesive power and I used it for holding the pieces together during the photo session.



to be continued....

 

[Trex]

THE CUPOLA

To clarify things regarding the kit's historical accuracy, allow me to present some more information.
Let's look at the kit's cupola first.

The T-34 tank was built in many versions and each version had different variations of turrets and cupolas.
When the Germans started using the Panther and Tiger tanks in 1943, the Soviets replied in March of 1944 by producing an upgraded version of their early T-34 medium tank, the T-34/85.
The upgrade included many important features, the main ones being a bigger turret to accommodate three men, thicker armor, and a larger 85 mm gun.

The T-34/85 turret design kept evolving even after the end of the war, therefore many variations existed.

The kit's cupola denotes a 1945 production turret when the cupola type changed from split type to single hatch.

sketches by Ray Peterson

There were 4 types of T-34/85 turret roofs:

sketches by Ray Peterson

We can see the kit's cupola is of the late (C or D) bigger type, as it's the single hatch cupola of the 1945 and later turrets.

to be continued....

 

[Trex]

THE CUPOLA (continued)

Only the right hinge of the hatch has a flap that serves as a stop to keep it in vertical position when open.
So, when you inspect your kit's pieces don't be fooled and think the left hinge is broken.

On top of the cupola in the picture above is an open-type Mark-4 periscope while the kit depicts the enclosed type, both types were commonly used.

Some things to consider in case you plan to model the turret under the kits cupola:
This type of hatch could be rotated on top of the cast cupola, so you may see it open to the left or right as well as to the front, it doesn't matter which direction you put it on the turret.
For example, the hatch in this photo is rotated slightly to the right of center.

This photo shows the bulge on the turret's left side in order to accommodate the larger cupola of the 1945 and later turrets.

This photo gives us a good example of the Soviet welding of the period and a good view of the inner side of the commander's and loader's hatches.

The handle issue:
Looking at the picture above, it reminds me of one thing that bothers me in the kit.
I didn't find a reference photo to match the type of the inner handle sculpted on the kit's hatch.
I found many of this handle type:

but I couldn't find any to match this type:

I am sure Offo has this covered with his reference and will enlighten us further on.
Speaking of Offo, he did a great job in imitating the rough cast texture of the real cupola:

to be continued....

 

[Mark Dollery]

Hi Trex, I got this bust & cupola myself & it's a great piece. Nice work on the references for numpties like me who don't know much on soviet armour.
Look forward to the updates...
Mark D

 

[Nap]

Trex ,

An Interesting piece like the addition of the cupola

Nap

 

[Trex]

Painting the cupola:

The color to use for the outside of the cupola and both sides of the hatch is a dark olive green with a hint of yellow tint.
It's well known among Armour modelers as the "4BO Green".

It was used as the basic color for all armored and soft-skin Soviet vehicles during WWII.
There's a lot of debate about the exact recipe for the correct 4BO, but a great reference is provided by Neil Stokes in the link below:

Soviet Colors in the Great Patriotic War

There's a 4BO recipe in the link if you want to mix your oils to make it.
If you don't wanna bother so much with oils, all model paint producers have an acrylic 4BO Green in their range.

WWII Soviet tanks were whitewashed during the winter months while operating in snow conditions.
This would be an interesting painting option, but the bust's uniform wouldn't match with it.

The inside of the cupola was painted as the inside of the turret, white.

to be continued....

 

[offo]

Hey certainly you know the situation when you are looking for the photo rather not find her.
Type of closure lid has been mixed. Add Photo kits here, where this type of use. When I find a correct picture of the real machine that also add that too.

 

[Trex]

Offo, thank you for these, a photo of the real thing would be welcome too when you come up with one.
To be honest, it doesn't really bother me so much because the handle will be hidden behind the Tanker's back and my kit's viewers don't go into such details.

 

[Trex]

Apologies for the delayed posting of the next part of this review, been busy with family issues.
I think we had enough of "T34ology" for now, one could go on forever when researching the different versions of the T-34.
Let's move on to the main focus of this kit, the Tank Commander.

THE TANKER

As we can see in the pictures above, the bust is sculpted with realistic cloth folding and in scale uniform details.
There's some flash resin and mild mold lines to be cleaned before priming.
The left hand plug receptacle on the torso has a small bit of resin inside that prevents full contact.
Taking care of this, both hands will fit nicely to the torso part.
Comments regarding "uniformology" will be added in another part of the review.

The head is very nicely sculpted too IMHO.
No molding lines here, but you got to clean a couple of carrier plugs protruding from the neck to the helmet flaps.

He looks tired and frustrated and gives a feeling that life in the T-34 was difficult.
And indeed it was very difficult in reality.
The crew could barely move inside the cramped space of the tank.
Heating and ventilation was poor, they froze in the winter and suffocated in the summer.
Shot cartridges were rolling on the turret floor which was actually ammunition boxes with uneven top.
When the commander sat in his place, his knees were either pushed against the gunner's back or uncomfortably kept to the left of his body.

Keeping in mind the above, IMHO the head shows an interesting character and gives a feeling which is in accordance with the theme.


to be continued....

 

[Huw63]

Excellent review of a fantstic piece. Looking forward to reading more.

Cheers

Huw

 

[Grod]

Thanks for taking the time to review this piece Trex. Like many figure fans I don't know much about armour but find your research and reference very interesting.
Cheers
Gordon

 

[Trex]

Thank you gentlemen.
Moving on, we'll take a look at ...

THE UNIFORM

Gymnastyorka shirt

Our tank commander is sculpted wearing an M43 "gimnasterka" blouse-shirt which was introduced in 1943 uniform orders and was used until 1969.

The 1943 version replaced the simpler M35 and reintroduced epauletes on the shoulders.
It had a stand up collar with two buttons.
It was used by the enlisted and the officers, the only difference being the existence of two breast pockets on the officers version.


Epauletes

Shoulder boards after January 1943 came in two versions for service and field uniforms.
The board main color was gold for service uniform boards and khaki drab for the field version.
Both had colored piping along the three edges.

On officers shoulder boards, there were stripes running along them:
Two for senior officers (Major and above) and one for junior officers (up to Captain).

Rank stripes and board edges piping color was red for the services of Armoured troops and Artillery.
Our guy wears a one stripe-one star epaulet which makes him a Junior-Second Lieutenant (OF1).

For Armoured troops there was also a silver tank emblem immediately next to the brass button.
According to some reference, this emblem was not present on the field version boards.

Service uniform:

Field uniform:

According to other reference, the tank emblem was also on the field type boards:

Our bust doesn't have the tank emblems on the shoulder boards, therefore one should better paint them as field boards.
I think I will take a poetic license and paint them as service boards with the excuse of being in war time and worn inside a tank.
After all, if you want the tank emblems on the boards it shouldn't be too hard to paint them.


Medals

I can't be sure because of the scale, but I think the medals sculpted on our commander's shirt are an "Order of the Red Banner" and an "Order of Lenin"

Helmet

WWII Soviet tanker's helmet was made of fabric and horsehair.
It had three top and two side ribs to serve as bumpers plus a couple of side pockets.

The helmet color was normally black.
Being made of dark fabric and used in harsh conditions, it very often faded towards various shades of grey and blue.

 

[Huw63]

This is the sort of info that brings tears to my eyes. This attention to detail and quality research is a pleasure to read and will make a fantastic piece come to life.

Cheers

Huw

 

[Trex]

Thanks Huw, glad you like it so far, time to come to a ....

CONCLUSION

In a nutshell, I really like this bust.
It's well made, it's big , it has character and it has a nice bit of scenery to go with it.
The face asks for a "battle worn" look and I'm sure it will look impressive when painted like this.

Thank you Palo and Gordon for producing this.


Wrapping it up, I hope you enjoyed this review and learned something new reading it.
I may have turned the balance more towards historic reference on this one, but after all we're all here because we love military history, aren't we?

If you still wanna get into more details, I'd suggest to take a look at the classic "Men at arms" series by Osprey, issue Nr 216

That's all for now gentlemen, thanks for reading this, all the best and keep modeling.

 

[Nap]

This is the sort of info that brings tears to my eyes. This attention to detail and quality research is a pleasure to read and will make a fantastic piece come to life.

Cheers

Huw

Got to agree with this great references

Nap

 

[Grod]

Great reference Trex and once again thanks for your time and effort you have put into this review. Armour is not my usual area of interest but I'll definitely have a bash at painting one.
Cheers
Gordon

 

[Viking Bob]

Nice and informative, great review. Not my field of interest but you never know.

 

[Manfred]

Thank you for this very informative review and background information.