M-Models 1/35 Soviet D-8 Armored Car
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History:
Near the end of the 1920s it became clear that a mobile armored machine
with a machine-gun was necessary for the Red Army use. It was mainly intended
for reconnaissance work, communications and protection. At this time,
it was possible to build on the chassis of standard commercial automobiles
with a single driving axle. The choice was made for the chassis of cars
that were being manufactured, under license of Ford, using their drawings
at the Nizhniy Novgorod Motor Works. This passenger car was characterized
by its small weight, simplicity, and fairly high cross-country ability.
This ability was due to rather large wheels of a diameter of 730mm.
 This
new armored car was designated the D-8. It was designed and built under
the supervision of N.I. Dyrenkova. He tried to make the machine light
and small, and also less noticeable in combat with reliable armor protection.
Dyrenkova refused to use the traditional turret on the vehicle and instead
put the armament inside the heavy-set body.
The armament consisted of the DT machine-guns with ammunition storage
for 2079 rounds. This included 756 armor-piercing ones. One machine-gun
was placed in the right front plate, next to the driver, and a second
machine-gun was mounted in the rear wall. There were several openings,
in the side armor, for the D-8's crew to provide all around fire if necessary.
The armored body was made up of heat-treated flat armor plates of different
shapes, that were welded between each other. These protected the crew
only from standard rifle rounds. The armored hood, with tip-up lateral
doors, had movable slats in front. Through these, when they were open,
air was transferred to the radiator. During battle, however, they were
closed and air went through the inclined gutter that protected the front
axle and crankcase.
The D-8 was slightly modernized after some time. A rotary turret with
a DT machine-gun in a ball mounting was finally installed. In 1932, the
new FAI armored car on the same D-8 base was built.
Building the D-8:
 I
did the in-box review of this little kit quite a while back. Recently,
I decided to finally build it. To my knowledge M-Model has not released
a lot of kits to the market. I only know of this one soft-skin type vehicle
by them. It is injection molded plastic, in a rather soft white plastic.
The most annoying two things about the kit were the lack of a floor board.
I had to make one out of card stock. There are also no machine-guns provided
either. I made mine out of rod stock. The decals in the kit were bad too
- very runny looking at the edges of the marks and not well printed at
all. There was a lot of flash to clean up off the parts too.
I put the undercarriage frame together as per the instructions. Then
I mounted the upper body piece and the side doors. The front fender went
on last. The kit's headlight housing were totally worthless, so I replaced
them with some from my spare box. These were treated to some MV brand
lenses. On the rear fenders I added some small brake lights (also from
my spares box). The spare tires, on each side, were given a large washer
and lug nut combo from Grandt line brand. Otherwise they would look like
they had no visible means of support.
Painting:
The vehicle was given an overall base coat of a dark green. Once it
was thoroughly dry, over night, I went back over it with a streaky airbrushed
white. I wanted this winter white wash to look like it was wearing off.
Tires were painted with a dark gray color. The swastikas (yep..the Finns
used them long before Hitler and his gang) came from a sheet of Luftwaffe
decals that I had in my decal file. I went over them, with a very fine
brush, and painted the center black area with a dark navy blue.
The Base
 I
took a wood base from my stack of them and glued a couple pieces of plaster
of Paris that I had left over from another diorama project to it with
some Elmer's white glue. I wanted this to look like a couple of piles
of snow. I then spread more Elmer's around and glued some Splenda brand
sugar substitute and table salt onto this for more snow. It didn't seem
to dry white enough to suit me, so I painted it with white acrylic paint.
Conclusion
I enjoyed building this. But think that M-Model really owes the buyers
of this kit a couple of machine guns in the box. With a floor board part,
better decals and headlamp housings included, this kit could have been
raised from the mediocre to rather decent.
But, hey, with a little extra work and effort it can be turned out
nice. I chose to mark my model as one that was captured by the Finns during
the Winter War with Russia.
Do you think Henry Ford ever envisioned this happening to one of his
car designs?
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