1/35 T-18
Hobbyboss 1/35 T-18

And finished! Hobbyboss' 1/35 T-18 Mod. 1927.

The T-18, sometimes known as the MS-1, was a Soviet light tank of the interwar period, it was in fact the first Soviet designed tank ever to enter production.

During the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks captured several Italian Fiat 3000s, a copy of the Renault FT light tank. This was reverse engineered and entered production as the Renault KS, the first tank to be built in what would become the USSR. Following the end of the Russian Civil War, the new Soviet Union embarked on a program to design and produce its own tank, this would become the T-18.

The initial design was the T-16, a slight modification of the existing KS with new suspension, however this design proved unsatisfactory, and a more complete re-design of the vehicle was required, resulting in the T-18. This had an entirely new hull, turret, suspension, engine, and turret to the original KS, leaving only a slight similarity to the original Renault. The armament however remained similar, a 37mm gun as fitted to the original Renault KS, but now with a longer barrel. Secondary armament was either a twin barrel 6.5mm Fedorov machine gun, or the newer 7.62mm DT machine gun.

The new vehicle was designated T-18, and was a considerable improvement over the Renault KS in several ways, it had a significantly higher top speed, up to 18 km/h, and the new suspension provided much better crossing ability. A total of 960 were built, in several versions, between 1927/8 to 1931. Later versions had a slightly larger rectangular turret, and the final version was the T-18M, a modified vehicle appearing in 1941 with a newer 45mm gun as fitted to the T-26.


Onto the kit, this was actually a very pleasant build! Simple, but without sacrificing detail. The vehicle is rather small, but that just adds to its charm in my eyes. The build proceeded quickly and I encountered no major issues at all.

The one part of the kit I had some trouble with was the independent link tracks, but that was more due to my own inexperience with this track type, and someone with past experience should have no issue with them. And I agree they do look much better than the one piece rubber tracks, and even better than the link & length type I usually prefer.

The kit was painted using colours from Vallejo's Soviet Armour paint set, with 4B0 green primer being used, followed by an all over base coat of 3B green. The tracks and machine gun barrels were painted in metallic black.

After this I proceeded to weather the vehicle using mixed layers of rust, brown, and sand yellow paint. I was very pleased with the result as it blended nicely giving a realistically worn look.

I considered using some spare red star decals I had, but decided to have a go at painting the red star with my airbrush, to give it a more hand painted, worn look. I cut a star shape out of a piece of paper to create a stencil, and sprayed through this onto the turret. I am very happy with the results, and it has exactly the effect I was hoping for!

I included a picture of the vehicle placed alongside my recent 1/35 Leichttraktor kit. There is actually a fair chance that these vehicles may have operated alongside each over briefly in a training role, due to the joint Soviet-German tank training school that existed near Kazan in the USSR, prior to the rise of the Nazi party.

In conclusion, this was a lovely kit to build, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in this vehicle, or vehicles of this era. Now I just have to hope Hobbyboss do a kit of the 1941 version with the 45mm. 😉

Happy Building!