T-70A 
Kit # 370
Review by Jean-Claude Glineur - glineur.jc(at)gmail.com
Edited by Rob Haelterman

1. Hull

The hull is a one-piece moulding and comes without a floor in order to allow a screw (included) to be used to fix the turret in position. I chose instead to blank off the hull bottom with a ½ mm plastic card floor. A length of plastic rod was then glued into the hole, at the bottom of the turret, to put it in place on the hull top and allow it to revolve.
The too thick mudguards were not convincing and were very carefully cut off using a new sharp blade. A lot of sanding (wet owing to the resin) was necessary to clean up the sides before putting in place new mudguards and their supports. They were built from food aluminium foil, this material being easily obtained, cut and bent to shape.
Exhausts and their silencer are best replaced with copper wire/plastic rod of a suitable diameter. Their ends were hollowed out for realism.
Note that AL.BY does not provide any manual or instructions of any kind, at least not in my specimen.

2. Running gear

Road-wheels look like copies of the old Matchbox Wespe and are rather under-sized. Moreover 8 out of 10 were suffering from a lack of material on their outer rim and I decided to replace the whole lot with Matchbox Wespe roadwheels from my spare-box. On the real thing, those wheels are identical to their T-70’s counterparts and they were put to good use on my model.
Sprockets and idlers were kept as well as the resin tracks, IMO also copies of Matchbox Wespe tracks. They were put into hot water in order to conform to the running gear and take some sagging. They came in one piece (L&R) and I had to cut them to L&L to ease assembly. In the process, I broke several pieces that I replaced with a length of plastic track of similar pattern, found in my spares box.


3. Turret

This is a s a one-piece moulding too, save for the commander’s hatch which is separate and must be detailed if used in the open position. That’s what I did and without much reference on the subject, I used as a guide the inside of a T-34 turret hatch, plausible if not 100% accurate.

4. Armament

The gun tube was badly moulded and bent; it was replaced by a piece of Evergreen rod that had its end drilled out.


5.Detailing

All lifting eyes, moulded directly on the vehicle , were replaced with fine copper wire. Other small details omitted by AL.BY like supports, light cable, horn, were scratch-built from remnants of a PE fret and/or plastic, super-glued in place at the tip of a fine needle.

6. Painting and finishing

Brush-painted only, the model was firstly coated with a thin coat of enamel light grey paint, followed by a light coat of green enamel. After I had let it to dry thoroughly, the model received several filters of green and ochre acrylics from Vallejo, mixed-up in different proportions to give depth to the model and, last but not least, pastels and graphite powder were used to good effect to bring the beast to life. Figures are from Preiser, the commander’s head being from Milicast.

7. References used

-Internet
-Steelmasters hors-série N° 32 Stalingrad Operation Blau vol.1 (French language)


8. Conclusion

Like all resin kits, this one requires great care in cutting and sanding parts. Cyanocrylate glue was used throughout assembly. There are a few small holes to be filled with bits of plastic and superglue, but nothing that can’t be mastered by the average modeller.
This diminutive tank can be turned into a nice model, provided that one is willing to improve the basic kit with some replacement and scratch-built parts. It may be difficult to get, like all AL.BY’s production. I got mine many years ago from the well-known shop “le 16ème escadron” in Brussels, Belgium (no connection, just a customer).







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Article Last Updated: 17 August 2009

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