Why I have
built this kit? Well, the reason was quite simple – I received it from my
friend! Hahaha, seriously! But after it had arrived, I launched the Internet to
find some interesting bases as a painting guide. Of course “SU” is not so
popular as “ISU” so I found that it is a problem. The main point was not to
build next green frog with communistic slogans but create something interesting
drawing from ISU subject.
So, there were
two possibilities for me – green with winter white wash or 4-tonned camo which
is well known from Adam’s Wilder work he did with his ISU and there are
pictures from the war period that shows those beasts painting in that manner. I
found two shots where they are clearly visible.
Not
sophisticated enough… I mixed both ideas. Unique camo with worn white camo.
Tasty!
From the
beginning I knew that I need to focus on the white areas of the tank to create
the different volume on each segments. I planned to use standard hairspray
technique and oil paints to make it. Moreover the colorful camo base intended
to be not completely, which means I would like to cover only the sides and
front of crew compartment and the gun barrel. On the top only small parts of
color block could appear.
The second
idea was to make some damages. Lets imagine that the tank took some shots on
its right front side – there are traces of those hits and the most visible is
lack of two road wheels. It is a bit controversial but I like when my kits
provocate to discussion. The most important is the balance – the kit is tilted
to the left side!
The third
idea was to bring the realism to the kit. I found nice picture of “ISU” where
it is shown from the rear left and several empty shells are lying on the engine
deck. It was very inspirational so I decided to use it on my kit.
The forth
was to use metal tracks from Friulmodel to prepare natural sack of them. There
are hundreds of war pictures where soviets heavy tanks have tracks longer that
they need. I like this effects so why not to use it?
SU -152 was a Soviet self-propelled heavy
howitzer used by Red Army during World War II. As a base KV-1S heavy tank
chassis was used and it carried 152
mm gun-howitzer. SU was a predecessor of the famous ISU-152. The
vehicles assigned to heavy artillery regiments – in the beginning they
consisted of 12 tanks and later their number raised to 21. They started the
service in February of 1943. For the first time they were used during the Kursk
Battle where they fought with Panthers, Tigers and Ferdinands. Because of their
role and capability of knocking out the Germans tanks, they were called Zveroboy which
means “animal killer”. The Soviet propaganda used this name very
quickly. In the following months they were replaced by ISU-152.
Today we can find only 3 (from 700 vehicles
produced) – 2 of them are in Poland
and 1 in Russia
I built this model from Bronco set. It consists
of typical Bronco’s plastic trees with parts (the detailed fighting compartment
included) PE parts, clear parts for periscopes, individual track links (they
can be movable), decals and the instruction.
I had the possibility to change some of the
parts for aftermarket products, so here they are:
- Friulmodel tracks ATL-10
- RB Model gun barrel 35B63, shells 35P16 and
DSHK 35B122
- Eureka XXL towing cables ER-3542, ER-3502
- Miniart ammo 35076
- Plus Model Loudspeakers 223
- Aber side fuel tanks 35A46
- Tamiya fuel barrel 35186
The kit was published in Military Modelcraft International (September 2014) and Hobbyworld (164).
