MODERN RUSSIAN PARATROOPERS SPETSNAZ Esci Italeri Soviet Special Forces 80s 1/72 review nº6169 Mars Afghanistan Wars

Hello again and be ready for my friday review, continuing with the Esci saga, the Russian Paratroopers Spetsnaz!;

Box;Firstly, the box leads to confusion. Are they paratroopers, or are they Spetsnaz? are they both? this means everybody is both paratrooper and Spetsnaz, or just a half and half? leaving aside the title, the artwork is nice and better than standard, although it will be much better for paratroopers than special forces such as the Spetsnaz.

Italeri has decided that they are indeed Spetsnaz (Russian Special Forces, equivalent to commandos or SAS), and has given them the new artwork, so very like the 1/35 ones, but nice all the same. 

Finally Mars in his copy gives us a unusual box, which seems from a bad 80s movie (I usually hate real pics on boxes, and this is no exception). Although I agree that in this artwork they seem more commandos and less paras, but they don't have anything to do with the contents inside. (attention to the painted figures, which most wear white sports shoes! certainly not very communist!)

THE FIGURES - 6.0 out of 10 - (50 figures, 15 poses)

x6

x3

x1

Detail; 9.0
Pose Quality; 4.0
Anatomical proportions; 10.0
Funness; 3.0
Wargaming Value; 5.0
Historical Accuracy; 10.0

Well, first clarify something; Spetsnaz doesn't have a regular uniform, they just wear any uniform or combination they choose for the job, and they can wear any official or unofficial uniform. 

So let's judge them separately; for Paratroopers, they are just a bit dull, for Spetsnaz they are awfully boring. Really, I think that Esci meant this to be just Russian Modern Army, just a sort of a equivalent for the US modern infantry. Why not making a proper Russian Army? did the Warsaw Pact set fulfilled that role? not really.

If they were to be Spetsnaz, they should be doing all sort of exciting and undercover things, and the only pose that seems doing something of the sort is the crouched sniper. If they are to be paratroopers, at least one pose should be getting his chute, or ready to jump, or whatever Esci wanted to do with a man and a parachute. So thumbs down for funness.

And then we come to examine the figures, and no, I haven't repeated the image of the same man, there is actually 4 (!) poses gripping their gun to the air with berets and just moving along marching slightly. One is moving a bit faster, the other is completely still, and their weapons are slightly different. I call this the worst misuse of a pose in a set I have still seen. It was quite bad with the Vietcong set from Esci, but that was nothing compared to this.

Again we receive no prone man, and no grenade thrower, as in the US Modern Infantry. Neither operating a radio.

Let's continue on the bad. All men seem to be wearing a size less of uniform than the one they need, so although the anatomic proportions are perfect all uniforms seem that they have shrunk in the wash. 

Let's come on the good to brighten this gloomy review. We get 5 unique men, one of them actually writing something, one of the few soldiers to do it. We get a sniper, some anti tank weapons (the pose firing to the air is very good), there is no flash to speak of (but be alert, the Italeri reissue has missing the ends of various machine guns and this can be annoying),  and you get 50 men.


ARMY REPRESENTATION - 6.5
"The army representation score is the potential of the soldiers to be used for other purposes different to the one originally intended"

They can be very easily used to represent other paratroopers from other Soviet/Communist countries, or they could be used as Marine troops with some modifications.


PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 7.5

"The price value ratio of this soldiers will vary between every shop you go, and the best I can do is judge by their average price on eBay and online stores"

Quite good for 50 soldiers, and you can always get some second hand ones from Esci at very reasonable prices.


OVERALL VALORATION - 6.0

Disappointing, for those looking for lively figures. Good if you just want a Russian Army for Afghanistan. But so much more could be done, and they are a bit too similar in poses to other Esci sets. Still, even the failure of Esci can look quite good and decent in modern days.

Conclusion; Lacking style and force, it just covers what is asked for. 

Scroll down to see the painted figures;


If you have enjoyed this review and want to say thanks, the best way is to click in one of the advertisings in the blog. Every little help will be appreciated. 








PAINTED EXAMPLES

If you have painted these figures I would love to include them in this blog. Send a email to tam_cob@hotmail.com.

Soldiers painted by myself in five different styles;

Here you can get inspiration on other painted sets gathered from the net;

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next battle!

SOVIET T-70M & ZIS-3 w/CREW MiniArt 1:35 Model Kit review Light tank ref. 35056

Welcome to my friday review! from now on, each friday I will publish a review. 

This friday, it will be the MiniArt pack of T-70M with crew and Zis cannon!

This is the kit box. It clearly wants to depict that you are getting not only the tank, but also the crew and the cannon, even if this means that you hardly see the tank you are buying! nevertheless, it is a nice artwork (although it seems that  you are getting the bridge, which it doesn't!)

This set is just a combined box of the following sets (excluding the cannon and tank original crew);

THE KIT - 7.0

 When you open the box, it seems a very detailed and precise kit, but you will soon find that there is many parts with flash (hardly noticeable, but enough to look bad in small pieces) and other doesn't fit ok.

First, it is a kit only recommended to the highly skilled modeller. Not a model to introduce anybody in the hobby, or he will run from any model kit he sees after building this one*!

*If he is able to finish it :).

The cannon; You start the building of the kit building the Zis-3 cannon. Some of the parts doesn't fit well, the gun recoil mechanism, if you want to make it mobile and functional, you'll have a quite hard job. Some of the parts you need to be very careful when gluing them, as they lack any fitting pegs, and this becomes a problem for example with the legs of the gun limber.

And finally, the cannon could have been done as well with nearly half the pieces involved. MiniArt it seems that doesn't have the technology to mould even some very simple pieces, and you end up glueing 4 small pieces to make something Tamiya would have given in one piece.

To give you a idea, the pneumatic consists in 5 different pieces each one!! you have to glue each section and then it gives this "layer effect", and with the wheel rim you have 6 pieces where other manufacturers get the same or better effect with one piece.

The tank; it is better than the cannon in most things, and is the best model in the box. Everything fits much better, there is more fitting pegs, it is much faster and straightforward (the turret is moulded in one piece) and you even get transparent parts for the lights and visors. The body is also moulded nearly in one part (compared with the cannon, it would have 10 separate pieces!) and it builds into a very solid and elegant model.

There is one flaw, though. The tracks. MiniArt thought "we will save some hryvnias (ukrainian currency) if we only mould a individual track section", this or it was just plain lazyness. The consequence of this simple and potentially unharmful decision, is long hours and afternoons having to glue each segment to each one, when at least, you should have a large and flat piece for the lower part of the track in contact with the land. Obviously, a rubber track would have been 10 times better, or just small segments that you could have bent to adjust whatever situation you wanted to apply to the tracks.

I have made a mechanism the turret door to be able to open and close, which it would be nice that MiniArt had thought, as it would be quite easy to add.

The figures; They have a good sense of realism, although the poses doesn't seem very natural to me. Each soldier has a option of either helmet or russian cap. A curious thing is that they all seem clones of Daniel Craig! you can google it and compare. Also, if you glue them the cap they end up being bald and with very small heads, even if you are given two heads for each figure (simply with helmet strap or not). 

In my case I modified all the poses except the tank driver, as I didn't like them.

PRICE-VALUE RATIO - 6.5

Usually not cheap, in my case I bought it as a charity item from Panther Models website. But the combined nature of this set means that it will come out cheaper than buying individually the three sets.


 Overall;

A opportunity to get slightly cheaper the tank with the cannon, and to have one of the most produced russian light tanks in WW2, albeit if very forgotten and scarcely mentioned in books, magazines and other media.

Scroll down to look at the pics of finished models, including mine!;


If you have enjoyed this review and want to say thanks, the best way is to click in one of the advertisings in the blog. Every little help will be appreciated. 
This is the result of my Christmas build. I used the camo of a BA-10, as the typical green and white was too boring for my taste. The figures were painted in a reconnaissance camo;

Here you can get inspiration on other MiniArt T-70s builds, gathered from the net;

Thanks for reading, and see you in the next battle!