Rubicon T26 Soviet Light Tank - part three

So the T26 is painted. There is some final weathering to be done, but that will wait until the rest of T26s have been (bought,) painted.

Comparison with the T34/76.

Rubicon T26 Soviet Light Tank - part two

Having assembled the tank, started with some minor modifications.

The rear turret machine gun was deleted from the T26 design in January 1939. I cut the moulding down as flat as I could, then filed it further flat. Milliput was then used to smooth the rear surface of the turret. One of the structures on the turret roof does not appear in the illustrations I have found. I removed it with a combination of a sharp scalpel and wet and dry.

What appears to be the commander's periscope has an open top. I drilled it out to 1.5mm then shaped a piece of 1.6mm rod to fit. Holes were drilled on the mudguards and 1.0mm plastic rod added to help secure greenstuff soft stowage.

The tank was undercoated with Citadel Chaos Black. This was then sprayed with Humbrol Dark Green.

Rubicon T26 Soviet Light Tank

Rubicon released the the Soviet T-26 light tank last year. It is an extremely versatile kit, allowing you to build one of ten variants.

It comes in the standard Rubicon box.

There are three sprues. This is the chassis sprue.

This sprue has the mid series turret, plus the wheels for a Soviet heavy armoured car which also uses the same turret.

The final sprue has the twin turrets and the late model turret

There is an extensive instruction booklet and a set of decals.

I decided to build the late model 1939 version.

The turret features the mounting points for the aerial.

It also has the rear ball mounted machine gun.

Now, in January 1939 the machine gun on the back of the turret was deleted.