BA-10 NSKK Beute

Panos
Zvezda's BA-10 was one of those impulse purchases, where once in your local hobby shop, you walk the aisles feeling the inner urge to get something, but not having a concrete idea what, the only decisive factor is your wallet...

After opening the box and getting over the shock of quality, I set about roaming the web for something to spark my interest. It wasn't long before I began browsing the pictures in the very interesting and fascinating "Beutepanzer.ru" website, that I stumbled upon this picture of a "beute" BA-10 in use with NSKK (en.wikipedia.org/wik..ocialist_Motor_Corps). What immediately drew me to this project was the apparently crazy modification that the Germans performed on this specific vehicle, by connecting the mantlet of a Panzer II at the front of the turret!

I happened to have the good-old Tamiya's Pz.II F in my long WIP stash, and decided to sacrifice the turret for this project. The only pictures I could find online or in any book I had did not show clearly how they went about matching the longer Pz.II mantlet to the narrow BA-10 turret front, so I had to use a combination of logic, imagination and prayers for success. In the end, with the assistance of styrene sheet plastic and Archer's weld beads, I managed to construct a passable turret conversion. It is not 100% right, the right and left sides are not the same, but I can live with it.

A good friend of mine also helped a lot in matching the axle and front wheels spacing to photographic sources, adjusting and correcting the kit in many places. His dentist's fingers work magic with a little sprue styrene and cyano glue!

The wheels are the finely detailed ones from Miniart, thus upgrading the final look a few notches.

Before applying paint, I have to correct the towing hooks into towing eyes, as well as a couple other details.

TBC...