Renault FT-17 w/1917 Turret

Manufacturer: Retromodels(Exokit) (Kit No. 72012)

by Till Huber

BACKGROUND

The French extensivelyused this WW 1 tank at the beginning of the war in 1940. Theystill had large quantities at hand and generally used them insecond line for lower duties, for example as a tractor.

GENERAL IMPRESSIONS

The product design verymuch reminds me of ALBY. The yellow resin parts are delicatelyproduced and lie in a clear blister box. The detail on all partsis very good but not exactly on par with ALBY as there has to bea lot of flash and casting errors removed. Adding to that Iwished the bolts would be more recessed on the hull and turret... but you cannot have everyting I guess ;-) The smaller parts,what I suspect are a couple of searchlights, suffer from warpingand could not be used. Overall the fit is satisfying and assemblywon't give you a hard time.

The kit features twodifferent turret versions. One is the rounded version, which Ihave used on my specimen, the other is a hexagonal turret with ahatch on top. The Ft-17 has one flat trailer which is probablyused to flatten and even the soil, so this tank has been used byFrench engineers building fortifications (?).

CONSTRUCTION

Assembling the major partsof this kit is done very easily, the tracks and wheels arealready molded and have to be gently fit into each other. As Isaid earlier, the smaller parts are the weakest point of this kitand for instance the construction of the hatches and turret wasquite fiddly. I couldn't manage to get the three-pieced enginecover right, so I left it off as well as some stowage to make atank which has broken down and was just left by its crew ;-), asyou see I plan all my tanks to be a diorama element later on.

The front hatches for thedriver can be opened, unfortunately the large pulling bars fordriving are absent so you have to scratchbuild some. As I lackany interior reference about this nice little French tank Ihaven't bothered starting with that, until I can be sure what issupposed to be there.

The same can be said aboutthe engine compartment which I have not managed to get closed dueto my own incompetence. The engine itself is one piece and neatlymolded.

I added a very small chainto the passing tail which was often seen there. This feature seenon many photographs probably underlines the usage and importanceof the FT-17 as tractor, pulling heavy equipment and awkwardgoods like chopped lumber.

MARKING AND PAINTING

I know very little aboutFrench tanks, all I have is Jean Restayn's "Armour of the2nd World War" book telling me the simple way of how theFrench marked their tanks with playing card motives. I alwaysfound them more appealing than anything I had seen before (evenmore then the funny German tactical marks). French tanks alwaysattracted my attention as they were painted more colourful, (evenin tanks the French culture is much superior to ours ;-) and theyall have this common exotic/bizarre design that looks like amixture of the First and Second World War.

I modelled this FT-17after another one I had seen in the Track-Link Gallery. Even thecamo is pretty much the same although the tank on TL is adifferent version.

I had got this tanktogether with a sheet from Aleran because I knew that my existingspare decals would not be sufficient enough to mark this tank.

Regarding my reference ablue cross means that this tank belonged to the 1st company 4thplatoon of a modernised French tank bataillon; (Refer to thetable below).

	Platoon
	1st	2nd	3rd	4th
1st company
2nd company
3rd company

Adding to that the Frenchhad flags similar to the Russians but I won't enter into thisfield of research.

I can very much recommendALERAN decals, they are quite expensive but well researched andfit perfectly on any tank of this era although they are 1/76which is hardly noticable, take look onto the Kitlist table of ALERAN . If you want to have it all 100% accuratethen you are restricted to use them only for the appropriate tanknoted in the instructions. I had the sheet FR-3 which is supposedto be used on Renault R35 & R40. It has registrations plates,cocardes, white circles, slogans, white numbers and plenty ofthose playing card motives so its the best point to start with,when going into French AFV.

I used the name"Buffle" for this tank which means Buffalo in English.Fits pretty well on a tractor, doesn't it?

The camo is handpainted, Ihad tried this a lot lately and it looks okay. It think anairbrush could not just draw such a thin line as the black onesbut you are always welcome to prove me wrong.

AGING & MUD

Okay, with the large tracklinks and the wide outer track teeth I had the idea to add somemud onto the tank. I mixed some gypsum particles with putty andapplied it on the tracks and wheels. Well... uh oh, now it lookslike a boar that just waded through the swamps. I had a hard timefinding the right colour for the mud that it differs from thecamo evidently.

After that I drybrushedwith gray as I always do and added some rust on the chains &muffler. Hopefully you still find my reviews entertaining enoughas I am always repeating myself in this part. Repetitive aspectsof work don't give me the impression to improve a lot but maybeyou experience(d) the same as I did. The best way out of thisfeeling would be to try something new on every model which canlead to a bad end as well ...

Happy modelling,

Till Huber

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