Japanese Tank Type 1 Chi-He Finemolds 1/35

The other day, I made an Imperial Japanese Army tank crew kit first to make a kit of an Imperial Japanese Army tank from my stock. The one I chose this time is the Type 1 middle tank Chi-He.

There was a reference diagram of the axle position of each wheel. I appreciate such detailed explanations.

I assembled the parts of the turret.

It seems that the Finemolds kits of the Imperial Japanese Army tank have been changed to the parts of the partially connected track. Still, I bought my kit quite a while ago, so if you like the connected caterpillar, I think using the separately sold track kit of the Vision Model is convenient.
(2020/03/18)

Double-sided tape is attached to a large piece of wood, and the small parts are fixed and assembled.

A connected track is easy to reproduce when the upper track slightly droops due to the weight.

Before painting the whole tank surface, I painted silver, such as headlights, and installed clear parts.

I added an antenna with a piano wire and put a wire net on the exhaust muffler cover.

I went to a sweets shop or a barbershop yesterday, but there were no customers, probably because they feared a virus infection. This isn’t nice for the economy. But there were a lot of people in the pet shop. Maybe it’s because everyone stays at home and feels lonely, so they come to see pets.
(2020/03/21)

Masking headlights.

I don’t know how to paint it, but I used a black surfacer as a primer.

This time, I will try to use a later camouflage color set of the Japanese Army tank released by Creos. I will try to paint Mr. Color with a brush while using a retarder. It was fun to finish a tank with Vallejo paint a while ago. Lacquer paint is difficult to paint with a brush, so if I fail, I may reapply with an airbrush or try again with a similar color to Vallejo’s.

Hahaha. The base of the black surfacer may be starting to melt. When I put a similar color of Vallejo on the palette, it was slightly different from the original color of Creos, so I would like to switch to the airbrush painting. It’s still cold, so I didn’t want to open the window and paint it, but now that I think about it, it’s terrible for my health if I don’t open the window with a lacquer brush painting.

I changed my mind and painted it black and white base color.

The prediction that it would be a cursed Olympics came true. There was a video that Blue Impulse’s Olympic cloud was swept away by the strong wind, which was not reported on T.V. The torch from Olympus, Greece, including the seed flame, seems to have gone out. Let’s stop the money celebration; what is essential is the fire of life. I wonder if heaven is punishing the misrule of the Abe cabinet for seven years. Seven years ago, I supported the Liberal Democratic Party, but now it’s different. But there are a lot of countries that are worse than Japan, so I wonder if it’s not such a punishment. These days, I feel that the government is strongly determined not to take responsibility, only proposals and advice, and requests to our nations. I hope this disaster ends soon.
(2020/03/23)

Used masking sol after painting grass color.

This time, I drew the boundary of the camouflage color.

It’s no longer related to the Olympics, so they announced the infected people in Tokyo. The whole world is failing, so it’s not just Japan that is a stupid government. The Tokyo Gov. Koike is trying to stand out, so I only have a premonition that she will issue a curfew. Still, we don’t know why mortality is so high in Italy, but at least we’ve found that tomatoes and olive oil have nothing to do with the new virus.
(2020/0325)

For marking this tank Type-1 Chi-He, I chose the 5th Tank Regiment Headquarters, Colonel Sugimoto. It was in August 1945, in Saitama Prefecture, Japan.

According to the instruction manual, the 5th Tank Regiment was organized in Kurume in Kitakyushu in 1937, and after that, their deployment locations changed to Manchuria, Tochigi, and Saitama Prefectures, since its formation, it has never had any actual combat experience; and the war ended.

The unit mark is a square white background, and red indicates each company, and this mark means the headquarters of the regiment.

The Type-1 tank developed as a successor to the Chi-Ha was a 47-millimeter gun compared to the Chiha’s 57-millimeter short gun, but it had a long gun barrel and was powerful.

A development order was issued for the Chi-He tank in 1940, but the prototype was completed in June 1943. It is said that the development budget for tanks was reduced considerably at that time because national power was allocated to the development and production of aircraft and ships. As I thought, the situation in my country is quite different from Germany as a tank kingdom.

After that, 170 tanks were mass-produced in 1943 and 1944. Unfortunately, the U.S. Army was mainly composed of M4 Sherman, and 47 mm anti-tank guns were insufficient. Moreover, the tanks mass-produced in Japan were not ready to be sent to the southern front because, at that time, the United States had control of the sea and the air.

Therefore, all these tanks were deployed inland, and the war ended without exchanging fire with the U.S. Army.

The Imperial Japanese Army’s tricolor camouflage is unique. It will blend in well with nature in Japan.

Chi-He didn’t survive the fierce battle, so I made the wethering relatively light.

I paired it with a tank commander. Maybe this angle fits the arms of the tank crew.

The other is a tank soldier with a military sword. I didn’t need this figure to match with a tank, so I let it stand beside the Chi-He.

It would have been good to blow camouflage color, usually with an airbrush, without worrying about the color border. In the latter half of the war, the Imperial Japanese tanks lack yellow lines, which makes them somewhat visually unsatisfactory. But when it’s done, it’s pretty cool.
(2020/03/27)