The Atom Furnace: Back to Bolt Action In North Afrika - 1/56 scale Rubicon and Warlord Crusader and M3 Stuart

These are two of the Allied tanks used by the "Desert Rats" against Rommel's Afrika Corp. 1940-1943.

I like the early armor with all of those rivets! Actually Brother Bob (Little Bro) inspired me, as he often does, with his recent Italian M13/40. I will not go into great detail as these models are quick builds but as Jack Reacher says ..."Details Matter" so I will point out certain things I think made these kits pop.

Desert Tan is the primary color which makes detailing a bit easier than a severely camouflaged model. I did use a combination of black and silver to color the tracks after which I applied touches of the Tamiya Weathering.

As usual I rely on the Tamiya Weathering Master for grit and grime, rust and soot.

A simple gentle rubbing of the rivets and other protrusions make them stand out nicely. This is the Mk II turret with the first upgrade of a short 6pdr main gun

A nice option in the instructions is the suggestion to forgo the clunky headlight parts in favor of installing wire using the mold supplied on the sprue.

Here is the initial result of bending and gluing in the wire headlight protection bars. You will see the final result later. Note the small turret above the headlight......

.....it is another of the many options in this kit. This machine gun turret was hand cranked and often removed, but I like the "dreadnought" look it gives so I used it.

There are also choices for skirts...

............ or not ......

.....as well as three turrets for the Mk II; Mk III and AA Mk III. Note the flags and antenna. The Mk III turret has a long 6pdr and the AA turret a pair of 20mm Oerlikon.

I drilled the antenna hubs so I could insert 26 gauge wire for radio and pennants. I picked up a tip online for using aluminum foil for the pennants/flags. Simply fold over with cyano for a foil sandwich, cut to shape and glue to the wire with more cyano, then paint. This works well for simple shapes and single color, but the process is also used with more complex decals (such as the Stars and Stripes) which can be glued to the foil. One more thing - the turret here is the Mk III with a spare road wheel and it has a blotch of dark green Camo that matches what I applied to the set of Mk III skirts.

Apply the Desert Rat markings (the decals are very good) and we have our Crusader Mk II. As I said before, now you can see the result of using wire for the headlight protecting shrouds.

NOW FOR PART TWO

THE M3 STUART

This is the M3 "Honey" turret of the Desert Rats. You can see the Rat decal symbol, which points out all of the components to use for the Desert Rat companion to the Crusader.

The M3 is a smaller tank so the parts are small and somewhat fiddly. Care must be used to trim the sprue attachments for the small parts to achieve proper fit. But we prevail and complete the British turret option.

I show this at the suggestion of a facebook group friend in order to demonstrate the scale of 1/56.

The track attachment is six pieces and care must taken to the order and direction of the pieces. They are tongue and groove so test fitting is important. The best order of install is the top, front, bottom and rear.

Although the Warlord kit includes an antenna installation the "rod" is too thick and out of scale so.....

......we snip it off, drill it out and insert our 26 gauge wire - better!

All of the hull components are attached and with this dry fit looking ok. Time to take the separate components to the spray booth. The tracks were already dry brushed with black as the Stuart had rubber in the tracks and wheels (which reduced vibration).

The light desert tan was applied and now the hull is glued to the carriage.

Lots of careful masking before we go back to the booth for the light gray application. I have touched up with flat black on recessed surfaces and machine guns in order to reduce the amount of final weathering needed.

Out of the booth with the gray spray; touched up and weathered and decals applied. All that is left is to paint the commander and add a pennant and we are ready for Africa!

"Well I'm bloody glad for that, it's hot as hell in here!

Once more the folded aluminum foil was used for the pennant.

I almost forgot to paint the tools on the backside! Now for the Commander.

And here he is in standard tanker garb. Black Beret with headphones and microphone. Mixed colors for skin tone and uniform. I added some patches on the sleeves, but hard to tell in this photo. The M3 'Honey' looks done and close to the instruction photo!