T-34-76 STZ Model 1941 - 130 Tank Bde.

[greybeard]

Okay, seems to be catching on, I'd best get in too. My first vBlog . . .

My subject is an STZ T-34 from 130 Tank Brigade, 21 Tank Corps, Southern Front (Kharkov area), April 1942. The base kit is DML/CH #6355, the "Model 1941 STZ" kit.



I'll be building pretty much from the box (who am I kidding?) with photoetch from the kit, supplemented by the louvers from Aber, and maybe some other stuff. The 550mm waffle tracks from the kit are accurate for these, so that's easy, and the running gear is also pretty much stock.

I'll post pics of the build to date later this evening, but this is the tank I've chosen to do:


I'm not convinced of the colour rendering, and the tactical designator should be Л2-КС, but it will give you all an idea.

I may decide to select a different vehicle from this unit, depending on how many more photos I can unearth, but so far "Ordzhonokizde", "Dzerzhinski", "Shchors", "Zheleznjakov" and "Kikvidze" are known from photos. This one looks easiest because I have an old decal sheet somewhere (Verlinden?) with the inscription.

Vehicles from this Brigade all carried the tactical code and a small Red Star on the turret. Photos show both the early welded STZ turret and later "chopped" turret were used. I'm still sorting through a bunch of new finds, and will post more photos as I come across them.

Here's "Ordzhonokidze":



Here's another (poor) shot of these vehicles on excercise:



I have several others I can scan and post from a variety of sources. I have a ton of otehr information too, so any of you who are also building this, or considering it, feel free to ask.

References to hand:
T-34 Mythical Weapon (Air Connection)
T-34 In Action (Ajaks Press)
Stalingrad '34' (Frontline Illustrated 4-06)
T-34-76 Bottom to top - Part 1 (Frontline Illustrated 6-06)
T-34-76 Bottom to top - Part 2 (Frontline Illustrated 1-07)
T-34 (Ballantyne Books) - very old, but with photos of this unit
Soviet Tanks in Combat - T-28, T-34, etc. (Concord)
T-34 Medium Tank (Baryatinsky; Ian Allen)
plus several other miscellaneous campaign-based volumes from Osprey and FI.
There are also tons of photos of restored vehicles around the web to draw upon.

I will post links and photos as the seem useful.

Cheers
Scott Fraser