Tamiya 1/35 Char B1 bis *WIP*

Thanks guys. It's been fun researching this tank and learning all kinds of new things, especially about French armor and their "flawed" military doctrine in the use of their tanks.  The Char B1 bis had good potential, as did the Somua S35, but they were poorly deployed and the logistics/support structures in place for them was inadequate. 

Bill - I had already checked out your log for some pointers before I began.  I really liked the ways yours turned out.  I meant to ask you, did you have any problems painting the idlers with the idlers and hull completely assembled? 

Marc - I may have to make a trip back east! 

Scott,

Since Tamiya uses the polycaps, the idlers and sprockets remain fully rotatable once assembled. I made sure to paint them completely so as not to have any "bare plastic" showing through.

  Scott looking foward to seeing more of this.I've seen one of these at just about every show I've been to but this is the first wip.

  Interesting thing about the Char, at the outbreak of WWII it was considerd on of the best tank's at that time,fire power and armor, and could have been a real problem for the Germans if the French had used them in the way that some of their General's had wanted.

Here's a quick list of tweaks:

1. fill the vertical seam on the driver's armor, parts B29 and the upper hull
2. fill the seam of the 75mm mantlet D4 and where it meets D10 (it's supposed to be a single casting)
3. add the "pigtail" hook atop D10
   
4. add a seam to the upper turret parts C23 and C22
5. add 3 lifting horns to the commander's cupola
6. consider adding a row of rivets atop the sponsons at the outer edge
7. open the mud chute

agentg wrote:

Good to see something other than a Pzkpfw something or other. I'm liking it already. BTW how's the fire situation up yonder thataway? Friends in wine country had some anxious moments as did a casino shift manager friend of mine in Temecula.

Thanks for the comments and the intereste gentlemen, I appreciate it!

It had been really smokey in the Reno area from the California fires for about a week and a half.  As you can imagine, it caused many people to have sinus and respiratory problems.  We pretty much stayed indoors as much as we could, with the exception of going out in the yard to handwater the garden and flowers.  It gave me a nasty sinus infection, in fact, I'm heading off to the Dr. office right now to deal with that. 

If I'm up to it, I'll work some more on the Char this afternoon and post update pics this evening.

Make sure you stay healthy so you can get this finished.  Oh and for the other reasons too like family, friends blah blah blah

Here in NJ we have that same grungy vaporous stuff that irritates eyes and lungs whenever you go outside.... we call it air.

Nasonex and anti-biotics.... I think I'm going to live now. 

I decided to go ahead and cut out the opening for the mud shoots on the upper housing for the suspension components.  I simply used a 1mm bit in my pin vise and used it to create a perforated rectangle slightly smaller than the opening.  It was very easy to cut the piece of plastic out with an X-acto knife.  I then carefully used flat and rounded files, in addition to sanding sticks to clear the opening right up to edge of its correct shape.  I'm glad I did that as it really adds a lot to the look of the mud shoots, in fact you can see right through them now... way cool.  I find it odd that Tamiya makes no mention of cutting out the openings, even though the opening is framed on the underside and clearly should be cut out. 

I have a lot more progress done, but didn't have time to photograph.  I'll post another update this evening.

 Hope ya get better soon. It's really aggravating when you tilt your head down to work and your nose starts a running.

T26E4 wrote:

Here's a quick list of tweaks: fill the vertical seam on the driver's armor, parts B29 and the upper hull fill the seam of the 75mm mantlet D4 and where it meets D10 (it's supposed to be a single casting) add the "pigtail" hook atop D10 add a seam to the upper turret parts C23 and C22 add 3 lifting horns to the commander's cupola consider adding a row of rivets atop the sponsons at the outer edge open the mud chute I think I listed all my tweaks on my build log.  Contact me offsite if you want my full nitpick list!  LOL

Thanks for the list of tweaks Roy, I appreciate it. I already dealt with the mud shoot issue, I'm still puzzled why Tamiya makes no mention of cutting that out, yet it's framed on the underside just like the spots where you have to drill holes.  I plan on spending a lot of time on the Char B1 bis this weekend and have been scouring all my references. 

I picked up an excellent book "Chars B au Combat" which is a wealther of information, but it's all in French.  I would pay big bucks for an English translation of the book.  I experimented last night with scanning a page of the book, converting it to text using Microsoft's document imagining software, sent it to MS Word, then copy and pasted the text into Babel Fish online to translate.  It worked out ok, but sometimes it takes a while to completely understand a sentence because the text is translated literally word for word.

I really want to research this tank, the units, the men etc. just as deeply as I research all my German armor projects but am having a hard time finding good resources in English.

panzerguy wrote:

Scott looking foward to seeing more of this.I've seen one of these at just about every show I've been to but this is the first wip.   Interesting thing about the Char, at the outbreak of WWII it was considerd on of the best tank's at that time,fire power and armor, and could have been a real problem for the Germans if the French had used them in the way that some of their General's had wanted.

The Char B1 bis definately had some strengths, that's for sure.  The Germans had a heck of a time trying to knock them out.  The 37mm Anti-tank guns and 20mm and 37mm Tank guns couldn't give it anything more than a scratch.  Eventually, the Germans figured out that the engine intake grill on the left hand side was a weak spot and exploited that to at least give them a fighting chance against them.  

The Germans shouldn't have been in that position however.  Guderian had been pushing for a 50mm gun for the Pz.Kpfw. III for quite some time which would have greatly increased the punching power.  Later, when Hitler finally gave the order to upgun AT and Tank guns to 50mm, someone diverted production and the 50mm AT gun was produced first.  That greatly put the Germans at a disadvantage when they encountered the T-34! 

tigerman wrote:

This is kind of one of those cool ugly vehicles, much like the KV-II. I look forward to what you will do with this beast.

I agree, it has a beauty all its own.  The Char B1 bis is growing on me, and so is the Somua S-35!  I'm going to have to add one of those to the stash too. 

Scott:  Let's just say the French woman are more enjoyable to look at than their tanks.  That is one nasty looking beast, but I'm sure your talents will do it justice!  Are you planning to replicate the box cover paint scheme?  Nice work so far

Here's one....We are the knights that say, NEE!

SMJmodeler wrote:

Scott:  Let's just say the French woman are more enjoyable to look at than their tanks.  That is one nasty looking beast, but I'm sure your talents will do it justice!  Are you planning to replicate the box cover paint scheme?  Nice work so far Here's one....We are the knights that say, NEE!

"I blow my nose at you silly Arthur King!  Now go before I taunt you a second time!"

I'll have to agree with you about the French women.  ooh la la! 

As it stands right now I'm planning on doing mine as "Bourrasque" which I believe means "Squall" or "Gust of Wind" which is the scheme on the box cover.  I am trying to do more research on the individual tanks and commanders but am having a hard time finding resources in English.  You know me, I like to build my models to represent a moment in time and to honor the men and machines.  If I can find some good reading about some of the Char B1 bis and their crews that kicked a little butt then I'd be interested in modeling one of those instead.  Heck, so far I haven't been able to find anything about the combat record of Bourrasque.  Although, if I keep chipping away at the book "Chars B au Combat" by scanning and translating sections I might be able to find the answers I need.  I don't know about you guys, but I LOVE the research part of model building. 

Great work so far, and i always enjoy the extra historical info you bring to the table.

I love that tank, I learned to respect it on my wargamer years when they used to slaughter my Pzs.. lol.. if the French had a different doctrine, history would have unravelled in a vastly different way! Looking forward to the rest!

Scott,

If you want some variety, check out Echelon's set for the Char B1 bis, they've got quite a few vehicles to choose from and different schemes as well.

espins1 wrote:

having a hard time finding resources in English.

Looking good so far Scott. If you're still looking for reference material, I have a copy of "Trackstory 03 - Les Chars B: B1-B1bis-B1ter", a 64 page bilingual (french/english) chronology of the tank from concept to operational units. It has colour plates, scale line drawings, explanation of all markings, etc.. If you're interested, let me know and we'll figure out a way for you to get a look at it.

wbill76 wrote:

Scott, If you want some variety, check out Echelon's set for the Char B1 bis, they've got quite a few vehicles to choose from and different schemes as well.

Those are some nice decals, but you know me.  I have to know about the tank, where it served and the exploits of its crew.  Its slow going doing the researc, but I've stumbled upon a great way to make all the great resources in French usable by saving the web page, pasting it into MS Word, then copying the French text into a free translator, such as Yahoo's Babelfish.  Then I paste the text back in overwriting the French.  Each word is translated literaly, but I an almost always figure out what they were trying to say, which has really opened up the resources available to me for this build.  It's a bit painstaking, but when printed out it's almost like having an English version of the text with pictures! I've been doing something similar with selected pages from the "Chars B au Combat" book.  

These are exciting times to be alive my friends!  I am a lot further along with the build now, and will post some more pictures when I finish some more of the exterior.