Session VI

Working on the lower hull

These funny winglets, that got installed with all their appendages into the front of the hull looked like they would be used to somehow adjust the tension of the tracks, maybe. At this point of the construction process I really couldn't tell whether or not this was the end where the return roller went or was it for the drive sprocket. Based on my "the Soviets always had the drive sprockets in the back"-kind of gut feeling I would've put my money on the first option.

Either I was going too fast or those bits that were installed at ~45° were mismarked either in the instructions or the sprues. Not that it was a big issue as I noticed it while dry-fitting, but it made me wonder. At least I thought that I had been careful with the numbers and the pieces.

While dry-fitting the upper front glacis plate and especially while gluing it on I got very iffy with the way it all looked. As if the whole front had been pressed in way too deep into the tub. Weird Soviet design, that wasn't for mere mortals to understand.

Then the rear upper glacis plate got a couple of small-looking hatches whose nature I wasn't 100% certain of. For any sort of maintenance they looked damn unergonomic, for escape hatches way too small and inconvenient. But just like I said a moment before, you couldn't always understand all these grand ideas.