"S-Model 1/72 Hotchkiss H-35 and H-39 - A Review" Topic

Here it be on me blog: link

Colorful lil' beasties!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Very nice Leland :)
Got the 'look' spot on.
L

Nice job. I have the Renault R35 and just now got my Hotchkiss H35/H39. I like the S Models. As far as assembling they are as easy as armourfast but I feel they carry alittle bit more detail. I have their russian, and british models in my collection and soon to be adding italy. I enjoy your work.

Where can one buy S Models?

Well Done!

Duane

Plastic soldier company sells them or ebay. That's where I usually get mine.

dice gunner….Thank you for the information.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone!

@LeonAdler, coming from you, sir, that is high praise indeed!

@Tim, the colors are believe it or not water based craft paints. I work up with a two-tone base coat over a flat black primer undercoat. The colors are as close a match as I could wrangle from existing paints straight out of the bottle. For a more accurate rendering refer back to the color plates I've posted on the blog. I've seen the shade of brown specifically rendered as dark as it appears on my H-38.

@dice, If you have the R-35s you've got some serious camo spec choices; I'll post some color plates on my Facebook page later today. The variance and types of patterns that appeared on the R-35s was rather more spectacular than the one's on the H-35s IMHO, some downright sci-fi if ya asks me!

@hocklermp5, I purchased mine through EBay sellers based in Taiwan and China. I can highly recommend AlwaysModel run by Brian Ych out of Taiwan. He's a class act who delivers the goods every time at a fair price:

auction

There are also sellers on EBay based in China. I've also dealt with Hobby414:

auction

And then there's AuroraModelShop: auction

Both delivered the goods in short order at a fair price, so I can recommend all three of them as sources for S-Model kits.

@Duane, thank you!

I must say that if your preference is for plastic kits, the S-Model series is the best offering out there for the Early War period. I am itching to add more H-35s and some Renault UE tracteurs legere as we move into the new year. Meanwhile due to the new understanding of precisely which colors were in use on French tanks in 1940, I have to seriously consider stripping down my RAFM Miniatures metal H-38/39s and R-35s and starting all over again, long with my Reviresco FCM 36s, FAA AMR 33 tankettes, and perhaps several other models, as it turns out that they are now highly suspect in appearance! Gah! Cue Godzilla facepalm! LOL!!!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Leland….Thank you very much for information on sellers.

@blackwidow, are you collecting,playing early war?

I will second Always Model. The postage is very low, and service great.

I am just hoping S-Model bring out some more Cold War stuff… there is no such thing as a 1/72 kit of a Chieftain tank.

and I think I posted this one before, but lovely (tiny) models.

"…I have to seriously consider stripping down my RAFM Miniatures metal H-38/39s and R-35s and starting all over again, long with my Reviresco FCM 36s, FAA AMR 33 tankettes, and perhaps several other models, as it turns out that they are now highly suspect in appearance! Gah!"
I never repaint. Why do that when you have a pile of unpainted figures lying around? Unless you're one of those sick individuals with Self Control who can avoid the "ooh Shiney" moments normal people empty their bank account on.

loving the purple in the camo!

cheers
Matt

@hocklermp5, you're welcome!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

@dicegunner, both (and the more the merrier!)! I've been at it for more than a few years now, having been fascinated since childhood with the subject matter. I've accumulated so much written and pictorial data on the subject over circa 25 years alone that I even lecture on the French Army of 1940 at conventions here in CA. It's a great, colorful war game force for tactical level gaming to be perfectly frank, plenty dangerous against the early war German panzers that were thinly armored and well and thoroughly vulnerable to even the French 25mm 34SA anti tank gun.

In a tactical fight the Germans have the advantage of superior c-cubed and in the tanks ergonomics but fall flat on armor protection and firepower. Thus even the little French light tanks can be annoyingly dangerous in a close quarters fight, as historically the French light tanks tended to fight taking advantage of terrain features and their generally good armor protection to compensate for the weak 37mm 18SA cannon's poor anti-armor performance.

The French tanker were generally quite gutsy if made a bit clumsy by their one-man turrets, and French infantry metropolitan and colonial alike plenty stubborn and even courageous when they had the means to handle tanks. Give your French infantry a couple of antitank guns and you can't go wrong, really, and DON'T let them have an FO with a direct line to an artillery battery. French artillery was when situated and ready as menacingly efficient and lethal as it was in 1918. 155mm howitzers for example were organic to French infantry divisions, and the old Mle 1897 75mm field gun could dish out some ferocious fire in the direct fire role, and break any panzer they could hit all too easily for the liking of the German Panzermenschen, so indulged yourself accordingly.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

@Murvilhill, alas, I am something of an OCD sort of historical wargamer and model builder, so if I can improve an older figure or model with improved painting skills and updated, more accurate references, I will do so if at all humanly possible.

I may try and acquire some more of the RAFM Miniatures R-35s on principle, as they are nice little metal models with plenty of detail and a dream to build having only six parts yet very accurately detailed and rendered, so given the latest reconstructions of R-35 camouflage schemes, resistance is quite frankly futile!

S-Model has made this only worse with these new H-35 kits, so I am really, really, really weakening in my resolve…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

@Khusrau, you're welcome to blaze away at my ratzi panzers anytime with that little gem. Excellent work!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

@bluewillow, there's also a pastel purple/pinkish color on the lower back right of the turret. The French light tanks and some of the Char D2s incorporate purple and even pink in their elaborate multicolor camouflage patterns. French tanks of the period varied widely from monotone vert armee (army green) to patterns incorporating as many as ten (10) different colors and even within the same company or platoon.

Char B1bis for example could come from any one of eight or ten different factories each with their own particular finish, made even more potentially random by the practice of Char B1bis being completed by combining a turret from one source with the finished hull from another(!). Then add in the fact that each unit could modify the appearance still further through the application of tactical markings, over painting those tactical markings, adding cockades (roundels), and so on.

Just about the most colorful WW2 army imaginable, so you get a force that on the tactical level can potentially put up a very good fight, and is colorful at the same time in a very cubist, even garish fashion.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

@blackwidow, thank you so much for your input. I will put that to good use.

Glad to help, Dice! BTW, I've begun to develop my personal Facebook page as a resource for painting French AFVs, softskins, and such to help out fellow hobbyists who haven't spent as much of their lives on the subject as I have done so maniacally:

link

I hope to get some more photos up of finished models and such once the weather breaks here in Northern CA…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net