Hi All;

Jack Mueller has just advised me that UM is planning to release a series of Russian T-37 and T-38
Light Amphibious Tank kits in 1/48 scale during 2010-2011. Hunt them down on their web site
in the Ukraine... if you can. Took me a while to find them too.

http://ummt.com.ua/







The 1/48 code numbers read:-
630 = T-37
631 = T-37A
632 = T-37A variant
633 = T-38
634 = T-38 variant


George Bradford

Thanks for the heads-up, George. I don't feel so great about this though; as these particular vehicles don't seem to be popular in any other mainstream scale. I wonder if these Russkie manufacturers can't see the forest for the trees and with all of their energy, time (and moolah $$$) devoted to this kind of silliness they will see the light too late, get discouraged and drop out completely! There are so many OTHER Russian subjects that need attention!! I doubt they have alot of resources ($$) to keep them going for them to DIGRESS in this fashion to this degree...how many variants of an uninteresting vehicle are they planning to make? - FIVE? Oh, brother. I sure hope they are successful. Chris Schwach

Hi Chris;

I can see your point, but I also see UM as a small player entering the 1/48 market very carefully. Certainly we would all love to see those larger Russian tanks, (JS2, etc) but my guess is that UM is trying to stay as small as possible, and as close to 1/72 as they can ... for production reasons.
They appear to have established themselves in 1/72 mainly with a whole series of the T-26 Light Tank family, and maybe are approaching 1/48 the same way.
In 1/72 their second blast was the BT series: BT-2, BT-5, BT-7, and "lo and behold" even a Christie T-3 in US Army dress!!

Let's at least give them a chance, and maybe we can even win over some 1/72 builders in the process.

GB

Hi George,


Very interesting vehicles.Those are pre-war tanks?.Nice adittions.

Best Regards,

Tom

Though i do appreciate any new products by a major kit maker i do feel that UM could have released something other than this. Personally i may build just one out of interest but buy all 6 varients.....Nah i think i will pass.
I feel that releasing half a dozen variants of this limited appeal Tankette may just be a bad move by UM. I do hope that should sales be poor, it will not persuade UM to pull out of Quarter scale armour production.

I can think of better Russian subjects to follow up the trucks, a BA64 or BA10 armoured cars or a Komitern Tractor may have gone down well with the Wingy-Thingy crowd.
Selfishly i would have liked to see a IS2 or ISU-152 or a T54/55 which i`m sure UM would eventually get around to doing.

I depends on how expensive they are. I can see them as good diorama background extras. Also, they were used as gun tractors mostly during the war. That might make an interesting diorama if UM also makes the guns to go with it.

Wow!!!! You guys are getting choosy!
For me this is fantastic news. Do your research boys. This was a whole family of vehicles. This will be the first fully tracked vehicle to come from UM. If it's any thing like their little 1/72nd stuff, we should be getting length and link tracks....FANTASTIC!!!!!!

Now for their T-26 and BT series.....Can't wait!!!!!!

JohnO

One doesn't wish to be negative if at all possible, given the dirth of new TOTS releases of late. However, be honest, these kits will NOT be big sellers, period. They haven't been popular in 35th scale, nor in 72nd scale. So why would 48th be any better? Ask your self: when was the last time I saw any of these vehicles built up at my local club, my local contest, the Nationals (where ever you live), or built up at any internet site, or in a magazine?

It doesn't make any economic sense to me either. Given the great number of Soviet military vehicles yet to be kitted in TOTS, why pick these as your next releases? If you have already done the research for other vehicles for your 72nd range, then release the most promising sellers as your next TOTS release, not the one guaranteed to score you the LEAST sales. A BT series would sell MUCH better, honestly.

AND, if this series fails to sell, then perhaps UM will say "TOTS doesn't sell", and discontinue the series, and there WON'T be a BT series. If there is to be a BT series, then look for it in 2012 or 2013, given that these little vehicles won't be out until "2010-11".

Again, hate to be negative, so to end on a positive note: IF these kits ever turn up at my LHS, then I will buy one of them. No more than one. I would not have even thought of them if someone had asked me to draw up my "200 most wanted kits in TOTS". Not even in my "Top 500".

Cheers,
Andrew

...about how I spend my modeling dollars, these kits probably won't rank very high on my list but I'll probably get one. They are a somewhat interesting subject and will provide some nice diorama potential.

As for their 1/35 scale cousins, we must remember that one of the reasons they've been unpopular in that scale is that the kits produced were pretty bad. A bad kit of non-popular subject usually=failure.

I do agree that UM and 1/48 scale fans would be better served by a release of the T-26 or BT series of tanks. They most likely would do substantially better than the T-37/38's sales wise.


Chris "toadman" Hughes
http://www.toadmanstankpictures.com

Again, it depends on the price. I'm always interested in unique, attention-getting things to add to a diorama. That is why I bought the Wehrmacht field kitchen, the Rest Models horses, the GasoLins water well, Faxon's dragon's teeth for the west Wall. I get the feeling that these guys are producing vehicles of interest to Eastern European modellers. Maybe there are enough of them to purchase these types of kits.

Oh, yes, I completely forgot the Russo-Finnish war enthusiasts. Try this:
http://www.lulu.com/content/4345393

T-50, T-60, T-70, they'd do a lot better, but these things were used during the early war period. I built a T-38 in 1/35 for a group build, and it was sort of fun (not an easy kit to get together). I am really interested in these for the tracks: narrow two-row guide horns skeleton tracks. Can we say Maultier and PzKpfw I, boys and girls? I hope they can hold on and expand their line. As someone here said, they seem to be following a very personal model selection process and it could bite them. I don't know how 1/48 is doing in the Russian sphere. I thought they'd do a BA-10 armored car based on the GAZ truck.

Huh! Guys!!!

The T-37/38 series was in the line up that the Russians started the war with. It figured heavliy in the early battles, examples surviving right up into the first winter. Not an important vehicle???? Ha!

T-37
T-38
BT's
T-26's
T-28
T-35
T-34
KV-1
KV-2

Now with the T-37/38 on the horizon, along with the KV-1 and KV-2's that we already have. All we need is 5 more basic types and any early Russian campaign Dio can be built! We have a Stug IIIB and if you were feeling adventous you could convert the Marder into a Pz38t! Bingo!!

Also I have a feeling the the GAZZ trucks sold well for UM. Because I doubt they would be presenting us with this series of T-37/38s if they had made a loss!

Then again. They might know something. A BT-7 from Tamiya!
Never say never!

JohnO

These two links should help with some idea's on finishing the on the way T-37/38 kits.

http://rkkaww2.armchairgeneral.com/galleries/T-37.htm
Three pages of photos, drawings and art work!

http://rkkaww2.armchairgeneral.com/galleries/T-38.htm
Again three pages of photos, drawings and art work!

JohnO

... in being utterly clueless...

If it's accurate I'll buy it, but for a scale that has utterly inaccurate (with solid-moulded hatch handles)King Tigers, Panthers, Jagpanthers, Hetzers, and No Js-2s, Jagdpanzer IVs, Stuarts, Priests or Churchills, we sure are spoiled for "choice" in non-famous oddballs...

You know I am really desperate when I actually own a Marder III and TWO separate Crusader variants, and am actually contemplating one MORE, they are that good...

I also plan on one or two Pz IIIs, despite the buit-in incompleteness making necessary expensive photo-etch rainguards and grilles... Did I mention my complete indifference to Pz IIIs? Well at least with those I can't quibble with the relevance to a WWII collection...

As for these clueless, if charming, little tanks, if you are going to offer early war Russian oddballs, why not the super sexy, well protected and fast T-50 that actually out-performed the T-34 in all respects during Russian comparative tests? And 800 were made too...

To add to the dismal picture, Tamiya is now wasting its single yearly or bi-yearly effort on a vastly inferior, and utterly unfixable, challenge to AFV club's excellent 251... I guess it will make a great match with their Fieseler Storch...

My impression is that manufacturers feel; yes there is a 1/48th market, but let's keep the boring stuff for them, and the better stuff for 1/35th.

That, or they are all staffed with conspiring 1/35th scale builders...

Gaston

While I could think about buying one of these if more important vehicles already were in my collection I hardly would do so now.

Others already wrote what I think.

Why no BA, T 26, BT 7, SU 76, T 60/ 70 ???

Am I too choosey if I want popular vehicles built in their thousands?

Are they not interested in selling kits ?

Same question goes to ICM. Adding half a dozen infantry and tanker figure sets with a quality like their aircrew sets would make them good money, but ? Deafening silence.

But on the bright side, if you were looking for an excuse to buy the Rest Models set of Reindeer pulling a large bomb on a sled and want a vehicle for the background, these are the kits to get.

I guesss I see things differently--too many 1/48s are just imitating the other scales. I would like to get away from the JAPT (just another Panther tank) mode. That is why I was very pleased when the Citroen came out. I thought there would lots of these things at model shows, in French army colours, as Captured vehicles and as FFI cars with GasoLine Free French partisan figures. It was not to be. Sigh

What is wrong with 1/48 being a scale for unique and odd vehicles?

P.S. Don't get me wrong, I too am waiting impatiently for Churchills and IS-2s.

Marlowe,

I did not want to come over high nosed and respect your interests.

Maybe I'm just too pragmatic when thinking about the success of the companies that do 1/48 vehicles.
I want them too succeed - and then do more - and even esotheric vehicles as well.

An analogy:
If you want to do a kit of an interwar training aircraft from the Montenegro air force of which three were built then you have to have a few BF109's, Mustangs and Spitfires to get food on the company table.
Thats what I mean.


Cheers,
Manfred

Tamiya forgot to include the side vision port slots on their new SdKfz 251 ausf D kit. Pix of a model under construction on the M-L DG showed blank sides.

for the T-37/38, for the present, and added a T-50/60/70 model to the mix at the start. They could have continued the early amphibs later. I hope these choices don't bite them where it hurts.....

I agree with Marlowe on the Citroen's desirability: I could not have been more thrilled when it came out...

Then I actually tried to build it: Hood far too short or cab too long, whichever, along with the fenders, a misshapen roof that is FAR too thick all-around, especially up front, wrong rear pillar outside angle, too shallow side windows shape, diabolically ill-fitting clear parts, Zero interior detail or interior furnishing provisions to conceal the unsupported glass thickness at the base when fitted, tires DOUBLE actual width...

I'm not surprised they don't show up so often on tables...

The only really good Tamiya softskins so far are the Steyr 1500, along with maybe the Kurogane... Look to them or Hasegawa's 1/48th vehicles releases to see how well it can be done...

It's clear to me 1/48th was the boss's idea, and that the employees working on them are, with a few notable exceptions, dedicated 1/35thers that are doing the least they can get away with for the most part... NOT a labour of love many of these things are...

So if these new UM releases are nice, they can certainly help with their originality...

The resin horses and field kitchen are certainly extremely attractive, and I will get them, but personally I would have enjoyed these particular things more if the big basic things were a little better covered...

The only good thing is that my building pace is not really overwhelmed for the foreseeable future, which is saying something...

I really miss HobbyBoss however; I have found their 76 mm M4A1 to be quite correctable, their subject choices rational, and their execution phenomenal, on a par with what AFV Club has done recently.

Gaston

the hobbyboss shermans take more work to fix than most of the tamiya ones and hboss didnt do alot of small details that are very important ie the hboss grouser box covers on the m4a1 are total crap and you need to replace them with tamiya bits ,their m4a3 75 turret needs a heap of work and their m4 is aright off and their m4a3 s need a heap of work to get the rear deck angles right and well the tracks are a disaster the saving grace is their boogie units but their wheels are undersize so all in all hboss shermans need tamiya kits to fix them and they are a dam site more work to get to a standard thats accept able than the tamiya kits and yes the 251 may have track and detail issuses but with ww2 tracks and abit of work much easier than hbosses shermans.that being said hbosses t 34 sare stunning and are awhole different game so it comes down to how far you persue perfection and for my money taniya 9 times out of 10 need less of my time to bring up to a standard that im happy with ill be posting some build shots of my next project very soon and that should give you an idea just how much effort is needed to sort out a hboss sherman m4a1 i think youll be very suprised at just what has to be done thanks wayne

It's VERY useful to know about the HB wheels being undersized: This is the first time I hear, or at least will remember, of it!

It's also very useful to know the bogies might be as good or better than Tamiya bogies.

I always planned to cross-kit these anyway, but at least now I know what to look for.

To me the Tamiya transmission cover is 16.2 mm deep, and should be 17,6 mm as I measured on an actual 76 mm... This puts the Tamiya hull Mg MUCH too low for me, and this could be easily concealed with stowage ONLY on the Firefly, which had the hull Mg condemned.

Hobby Boss by contrast is at 18 mm, and the Bandai is at 17.2 mm: Much better!

I can accept it being 0.4 mm off, either way, but not 1.4 mm...

I always planned on using resin tracks or Tamiya tracks anyway, so these HB wheels issues are very good to know.

I agree many of the Hobby boss Shermans variants are problematic or near-unfixable, and ALL require Tamiya parts to help. However, I persist in saying nothing outside of Bandai or Aurora is as horrible as Tamiya's Hetzer and Jagpanther, and you didn't hear a squeak about those needing a COMPLETE superstructure scratchbuilding...

Hobby Boss did deserve a bit of a scolding for their Shermans, but nobody ever emphasized HB's KV series absolutely demolish Tamiya's typically feeble, inaccurate and under-detailed effort...

Note the Tamiya KV tracks are actually better, so there IS always something good about a Tamiya release.

It's a matter of perspective I suppose: To me ease of assembly rarely rates very high, because it undistinguishable from my point of view from the issue of accuracy, which determines ease of assembly in the first place.

Compare Tamiya's recent 1/35th releases, and Marder/Crusader excepted, it's hard not to feel like 1/48th is a second or third-rate priority for Tamiya...

Gaston

Sherman roadwheels, and they are within a hair of being the same diameter. The only noticeable difference I saw was the tires on the HB wheels were a bit narrower than the Tamiya tires, but the overall wheel width was virtually the same. The HB bogies have somewhat shallow detail compared to the Tamiya bogies, but the Tamiya bogies have those ghastly molded-in-place return rollers. Under sand shields or M10/M36 hull skirt extensions, they may be acceptable, but out in the open, they don't look good when you can see them clearly. It is possible to route out some of the space around the rollers to improve the Tamiya bogie appearance, but if you are building any number of Sherman family vehicles, it will be tedious. I am thinking of adding some Sherman roadwheels to the P48 line, as the Tamiya wheels are mostly hollow in back, and the pressed steel solid wheels don't have much small detail.

It's funny how details effect people differently. There are some mistakes that Tamiya made that drive me buggy. The incorrect hatch hoods on the Sherman soured my interest in those kits : I have 3 Shermans completed-Tamiya M4A1, ID composite hull M4 with the ID late 1943 prod. turret and an ID M4A3 hull with ID 105mm turret on a HB M4A3E8 chassis, but no Tamiya welded hull M4 (the one pictured in the Gallery long since met its demise.) For some strange reason, the missing small light for the right-hand side fender of the Crusader AA irked me greatly. Since it is the same as the light that comes in the Universal carrier kit, I don't know why they didn't include it. They remembered the little lights for the Cromwell. And I don't even want to think about the carrier tracks.

BUT, the Citroen doesn't bother me at all. I quite like it and even if it does have problems, I like the way it looks. I have two of them.

I got the Bandai/Fuman KV-1 on the weekend. I am amazed at some of the detail on the kit. Quite comparable to the modern offerings, even if some parts are too thick. Using some Tamiya parts as donour pieces, and Tamiya tracks it will look quite presentable. The best part about the kit is the glacis applique armour for the driver's visor area. It represents the transition applique between the shorter rectangular-cut KV-1 1940 model and the higher rectangular-cut ones of the later production. The Bandai piece has the rounded cut corners and even has good welding marks on the side.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U74s8nFE7No

Tim

Ex-lepers, deceased parrots, the Boo-Kay residence and the Vicar of Dibley. There'll always be an England!

Click on this link. It will show you what UM has been up to in 1/72. A very interesting line up of subects.

http://henk.fox3000.com/Um.htm

JohnO

Wow, they have a cool line up in 1/72. I'm passing on these amphibians though. The Su-76 , BA armored car, BT, T-70, etc. - basically anything else would have been great versus this release. and I love the Russian armor. Craps again!

Anyone seen a 1/48 US halftrack yet? Doooah!

Looks like Hobby Boss bogies are the way to go; a great news with the low Squadron prices...

Speaking of strange oddballs, how would the HB bogies and wheels fare plausibility-wise on my "inpending" Bandai M30? How are the Bandai bogies and wheels by the same way...

Also I get the strange impression rubber chevron tracks were not as ubiquitous as the smooth rubber ones... What is the plausibility of these chevron rubber block tracks on the M30? And what would be the most common track type on an early 76 mm M4A1 and the composite hull Firefly?

I know there's no definitive answer, but the kit maker-based ubiquity of chevron rubbber blocks does not seem to be matched by actual WW II photos, or am I the victim of a wrong impression...

Gaston

A T-38 walk around.

http://www.dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?p=561

JohnO

Hi John;

Hey... a great set of walkaround pics, and the best part is that we are Back On Topic again.

GB

Hi Bruce,

I was thinking the same thing about the tracks. These kits might be worth getting for the tracks alone. I think I have five or six vehicles that could use them.

Isamu

how small they'll be in 48th.

Watch out if you get indy track!

If they get it right, they will be a really quirky addition to the 48th scene

Shermans vs Germans, the Big Cat killer Ants RULE M4!

So, if these new UM releases are nice, I will buy some.
But, I would like very much the T-26 family.

José César

Once someone makes a Tupolov TB-3 bomber in 1/48, we can model this scene
(courtesy of rkkaww2.armchairgeneral.com):



Jim

But did it bounce?

that was the problem. They gave up on this unique way of delivering tanks to the battle zone.

I can't help feeling there is something fundamentally wrong with this concept, but I just can't quite put my finger on it... Hmmm.....

Tim

Tim,

man you crack me up some times.

phil

So this is how Stalin dispensed of those unwanted tank officers.

It just keeps getting better!

http://beute.narod.ru/Beutepanzer/su/t-38/t-37-38.htm



And not just the russo-Finnish was either, how about hungary as well!

/#q=T-38 "russian"

This is indeed getting better!

Maybe this little tank was not such a bad subject choice after all!

In addition, it does make an interesting "scale contrast" to a KV-2 or Tiger...

Gaston

I think we have a little "winner" here. At the moment I am finally getting around to building the little Tamiya #32502 Kettenkraftrad & Goliath, and the T-37/38 is certainly no smaller to handle than these two teenies.
A nice contrast to all the larger Russian stuff... and the smaller size may also help to keep the price down a bit.

George Bradford

and just to keep the interest percolating:

http://www.nortfort.ru/np/foto_t381_e.html

I don't know why so many of you are belly-aching about this release? Instead of bemoaning how unpopular the subject will be, go out and buy one to support this manufacturer entering the 1/48 fray.

Am I the only one here who is getting tired of hearing the whining each time a new kit is realesed?

"But I wanted a Churchill...nyaaaaa"

"I wanted something Japanese wee wee weeeh"


I for one am happy about the T-37, and I'll buy one or two

I didn't KNOW I wanted these until I learned that they were going to be released. I, too, want to get a number of these even though I had never heard of these vehicles until I read the post about their upcoming availability in 1/48 kit form. I am particularly looking forward to the 20mm cannon version.

(I still want a Churchill and a Dodge ambulance, but now I want these, too and more Russian light tanks)