Firepower for the Nationalists

The Republic definitely had the advantage of of superior firepower with the T-26 light tank.  To counter this the Nationalists sought to convert their Panzer I's to accommodate the Italian Breda 20mm Modelo 1935 anti-aircraft gun into their turrets.  Its safe to say that this was not a great success as only four were produced.  A more viable option was the capture of T-26's from the other side to be pressed into Nationalist service.  A reward of 1000 pesetas was offered as an incentive. The Battle of Jarmara has a such a captured T-26 appearing via a chance card.  Finally, after searching for a suitable model at a wargame show (no success this year) I ordered a Zvedza kit.

Since a massive pile of snow outside the house has curtailed work activity (yippee!) I thought I'd crack on with the captured T-26.   The first task was gather together source materials.

Once the box has been opened we find a very simple kit.

After detaching the pieces from the sprue and quick clean up with scalpel and file it was time to glue a big off cut of metal into the body cavity to give the model some weight.  Never throw metal off cuts away!

The kit is incredibly easy to place together and required no gluing.  However as a wargame piece we might encounter some rough handling so a small dab of glue in the holes provided adds extra adhesion.

A quick rinse down with water and washing up liquid then on to the paint job.  A quick blast of desert yellow as undercoat.

The tracks and exhaust are given a quick starter coat of a dark tone silver paint.

The final paint job is going to desert yellow and dark green.  To smooth the blend of colours and make the contrast a little less harsh a dab of green is mixed with the base coat and painted in the camouflage pattern areas.

The top of the tank is painted in a very pale grey as background for the Saint Andrew's cross markings.

The Nationalists painted the turret in colours of the Nationalist flag to differentiate them in the field and the dark green pattern is painted leaving a faint line between the green and desert yellow.

A dark tone wash is applied to the entire tank.

Red added to turrent and black cross on top.  Done.  No great looker close up but fine for tabletop combat.  Just needs a base with stats attached to bottom.

¡No pasarán!