This article was first published on January 28, 2018

Heavy Armored Railcar BDT-35 history is here

Hello everyone, here is the assembly of the Russian armored railcar BDT-35 from AMG. About history, we have little information. There is a book but it is in Russian. Nevertheless, we can obtain plans. These railcar were designed in the inter-war period to accompany the armored trains. Since a train is by definition heavy, slow to implement and vulnerable because it has to move on a fixed lane, it was necessary to create lighter vehicles for scouting (usually 5 to 10 km upstream of the track) and transmissions. These vehicles were often armored cars (BA20, BA6 and BA10) transformed for rail travel. At the same time, it was decided to create more armed and protected vehicles that could also operate autonomously. Among these vehicles, the BDT-35 (for 1935), which was classified as a heavy-duty, gun-armed car. Five were built, some riveted, and served during the Second World War and ended their career against the Japanese and Kwantung Army in late summer 1945. One was lost during the war. There was also an armed version with the T34 turret called BDT-41 but was not produced in series. This car was very well armed: a T26 turret (45mm gun and coaxial DT machine gun), three maxim machine guns under a kneecap, a DT machine gun under a kneecap at the rear, and a double mount of maxim anti-aircraft machine guns that could fire through a sliding roof to the rear.

About the model itself, thank you first AMG for providing us with such an original model. At the opening of the box, we are surprised to find so few parts in a box so big and the disappointment comes when we realize that there is no portion of railroad, so we must add ref 35202 (do not forget that the Russian gauge is not the same as the European one so beware, some models of railroad will not work), which amounts to the total with shipping costs around 55 euros !!. But with the building comes the largest disappointment because the molding is that of the 70s with a lot of thickness, a rather complicated design of the parts (buffers and ball machine guns) and especially panels that do not join at all. This model therefore requires a lot of work and is not intended for a beginner modeler. Remains the originality of the model and also the quality of the photoetching which fits perfectly. On my model I wanted to get a little more detail and so I opened one of the access doors, the vents,the front lights with ELF lenses, I remade the maxim machine guns that are impossible to build as they are, I recovered the gun of a BA6 from hobbyboss, and especially I had to rework the side panels and completely redo all the upper beveled panels because nothing joined correctly.
The figurine is an Alpine one ref 35118