Zvezdas SU-76 Versus The Plastic Soldier Companys SU-76

After we took a closer look at the Zvezda SU-76 and the Plastic Soldier Company SU-76 in previous posts, in this post I will compare both kits. I am no professional but this should be no hindrance for a simple comparison of these two models.
Both kits were primed with AK Interactive Russian primer on most pictures.

A frontal view on both tanks. The PCS tank looks wider but they have the same width. Both tanks have some tools and a steelrope moulded onto the hull, what can be seen better on the picture below. But at an overall level, the Zvezda kit seems finer. A plus for the PSC kit is the option to build the drivers hatch openend.

You can see that the Zvezda model is a little longer than the PSC SU-76. While the front part of both tanks roughly measures the same, the Zvezda kit is a bit longer since its crew compartment is bigger.

A look at the rear shows that the PSC model seems higher than the other tank, but this is not the case, I choosed a bad angle for this picture. While the general grade of detail is ok on both tanks, I prefer the kit on the left side.
On the PSC tank I lost the box part at the right side and replaced it with a tarp from the bitsbox.

 

Both models from both sides. You can see some differences on these models, but the overall look is pretty equal. The exhaust pipes of the Zvezda kits are finer, also this kit has a spotlight, what is missing on the PSC kit.

A look into the crew compartment of the Zvezda model. The amount of details is pretty nice, you can see some munition racks and the gun is made pretty fine including a gunsight. The crew compartment is much deeper as on the PSC kit, on the first picture of the post you can see, that the crewfigure is hard too see, since it is almost at floor level.

A look into the crew compartment of the Plastic Soldier Company model. The inner details are given but simplified and the gun is pretty basic with a low grade of detail. But for a wargaming model, this is still fine.

If I would have to build a SU-76 platoon, I think that I would take the Zvezda kit, and no, I did not get paid by them to write this. Its amount of details is higher than on the Plastic Soldier Company model. This does not mean, that the PSC model is a bad kit, it is a nice model for wargamers, but on a personal view, the Zvezda kit is the kit which I prefer. A quick pricecheck showed, that a 5 model box of PSC SU-76 is almost priced equal to 5 single Zvezda SU-76 kits.

But at the end it is your decisision which models you would use for any games. But I hope, that this post may be helpful.

By the way, finally I found out how to change the name of my Youtube channel, and I replaced the retarded former name with the name of this blog and added a nice header image.

1:100 BM-13 Katyusha

Some pictures of my recently finished 1:100 BM-13 Katyusha rocket launcher from Zvezdas "Art Of Tactic" wargame range. I had built that kit before and used it as a base for this built. Some time ago I ordered it once again and made some simple modifications to improve its look.

First of all, for the windshield I built a simple armourplate from scrap plastic. Even when the armourplate is on the boxart of this expansion kit, it is not included in the actual modelkit as we saw in the closer look at the kit in the past.

I searched through my bitbox for the leftover rocketspart from the first BM-13 that I built. Since the Zvezda BM-13 has only an upper row of rockets, it was good to keep this bit for the bottom part of the second rocket launcher. Then I separated all rockets from each other and glued the single pieces to the rail.

The last thing I did was to add support stands for the rear of the truck. They were built from scratch using some scrap plastic. While they are pretty basic, they improve the look of the BM-13 a lot, just as the other two modifications do.

But no further words, let the result speak for itself:

Tomorrow I will compare Zvezdas 15mm SU-76 to the Plastic Soldier Company 15mm SU-76, and we will see, which of them I would recommend for platoonbuilding.

I am still unsure, what to post after that. Both Italian expansions for "TANKS" are on my desk, just as the Humvee expansion for the ww3 version of the game, there are still some unfinished "Art Of Tactic" reviews, and somehow keeps the list of custom units to make still growing and growing.

We will see. You can see the next custom "TANKS" unit on the picture below. When the KV-2 cards are uploaded, this beast is next.

More Aces Of The Autobahn

Just saw this car on my way to work and wanted to share these two pictures with you. First I tought, nice, the driver had a P-40 Warhawk as model, but with those black U.S. emblems, this should be post-ww2. Maybe the sharkmouth design was taken from the Cobra Helicopter or the A-10, many pictures of them with a painted mouth can be found on the web.

A funny coincidence since I made a picture of this some weeks ago.

At the moment I am finishing the BM-13 post, it will go online in some minutes.

Done.

15mm Planecrash Scenery Pieces

After the Soviet forces crossed the inner German border, big parts of Germany were conquered and sucessfully defended by them, while their allied Warsaw Pact forces rushed forward to reach the French border.

It is still unclear, what happened to F-WTMD. NATO and Warsaw Pact accuse each other. An small East German unit was near while the crash happened and reached the crashsite first.

It seems the Eastern forces concentrate in the Rheinland, ready to attack France. Then it is time to get these into service to defend their homeland.

You may know this kit from a previous post, it is the Master Modell 1:100 Dassault "Mercure" which got a closer look in this post. Pictures of the built modelkit can be found in this post.

This was built in a typical manner, some sand, paints and flock, and voila, it was done. Of course, this did not went fast, I spent the whole Sunday on these pieces. Two pieces were already started and two more were built from scratch.

But I wanted something more. I had some flickering LEDs and wanted to install them into some of the wreck pieces. I improvised the LED holders using some metal and LEGO parts and much glue and brought them into place with my trusty hotglue gun.

These things look creepy but they do their job well.

The the rear "smokepiece" is removable to reach and change the battery of this thing. LEGO pieces are used as connectors and this works well. Also a switch was added.

When everything was in place, I added some "smoke" using cotton. This made a little mess, but in the end it works as supposed. Then I gave the cotton pieces a fat layer of clear varnish to add some strenght to the cotton followed by some black to darken the smoke.

How this thing looks now, when it is finished, can be seen in the video below:

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Originally I planned to post yesterday, but I was in the mood to continue the work on these pieces and to prepare them for today. I hope I will be able to finish and upload the BM-13 and Katyusha posts tomorrow, since they are roughly finished it will not take too much time.

Todays roguish Montagmaler session was nice. While my mate Olli gave one of his tanks a fine paintjob, he painted a very nice German camouflage pattern, I built the electonics for these scenery pieces.

Even when I was sceptical while I worked on them yesterday, the result has a pleasing appeal, and I can not wait to see them on the battlefield.

Meanwhile In Sassnitz...

Work in progress, maybe I will finish the diorama this weekend.