For some reason the defence of Poland in my mind was an air affair due to the nature of the German Blitzkrieg. I had a massive gap in my personal knowledge banks and was unaware of the technology used by the Polish forces defending against Germany outside of their airforce.

However, whilst browsing my local model shop (well, it’s an hours drive away but these days that’s local) I found some boxes. I later would find out these came with a magazine, but neither of mine did. Alas, it means that my boxings were just the models themselves. No painting instructions beyond a diagram on the back.

The 7TP was a Polish development of the Vickers 6 tonne, and was viewed as an extremely capable light tanks for it’s time. Much like the French tanks, they were arguably physically more capable than what Germany held. The issue lay in both army strategies and sheer numbers.

The models I have represent a standard 7TP and a dual turret version. The Dual Turret version was not successful in comparison to the effectiveness of the 7TP and so was not used in numbers…but it looks amazing.

These kits are remarkably simple. And for some reason I didn’t take pictures of them. They consist of 3 and 4 sprues. This is for the single turret version and dual turret version. The sprues are the same except for where the turrets meet the main body, and where the turrets themselves of course.

They are remarkably easy to assemble and took me no time at all. Compared to my Scorpion tank, which had disgusting rubber tracks that I hated, this was a delight with solid plastic tracks. Why any manufacturers thought rubbers tracks were a good idea still escapes me. These areas of the tank were identical on both versions.

The turrets, like most, are able to move freely on the model and this means that for anyone doing wargaming or creating dioramas you have a good degree of freedom. Sadly there is no depression (more than can be said for me, am I right?) – so you’ll have to settle for it firing straight ahead or breaking it off and regluing it.

The paints I used were picked purely from how they looked on the back of the box. Both models have the exact same colours…as usual I used Revell Aqua Colors. The base was Ocker 88 (Ocre) and then I used Olivgrun 361 (Olivegreen), Dark Earth 82, and some areas have Lederbraun 84 (Leather Brown), and Holzbraun (Wood brown).

There are no decals in this kit…I can’t find relevant information online to suggest that it would have come with the magazine either – so I am 99% sure it’s just the model itself.

I did some weathering to the kit. This was just with a basic set of Revell Weathering kit. These are pretty basic colours – earth, green mud (the one you see most here), rust, black, and snow…which I’ve not yet used. I was super liberal with it and just tried to make these look really well used.

Buy or …Drive?

I got each of these kits for £5 each second hand without the magazines and I would recommend them. Most tanks do cost more, and do come with more…but these are interesting subjects that I would never have heard of it wasn’t for these kits. On that basis, I think they’re a great investment…and that comes from the Queen of “All tanks look the same”