Eastern Express kits can be rough builds but they usually go together well without much gnashing of teeth. Not this miserable несчастный кусок дерьма! This particular kit came very close to ending up in the parts bin:
I got the Eduard PE set as well, since Sprue Bros had it on deep, deep discount.
Where to start? First off, the little things - the SG-43 machine gun (prominently displayed on the box art) isn't in the kit and isn't mentioned in the instructions (there is something that looks like the ammo box one one of the sprues, but no MG that I could see). The instruction sheet is a blurry mess, but at least the parts are numbered. Great! Except the sprues aren't all numbered and the parts that are don't always match the numbers on the instructions.
After sawing away at massive sprue gates and thick, thick flash, I decided to test fit the lower hull. It's in four pieces: bottom, two sides and the rear plate. The fit was pretty bad, but manageable, except for the very front. I had to cut the front off, then bend the plastic until it "fit" (gaps were less than 1-2mm) well enough to glue the parts back together. The top of the hull didn't fit at all, and it required a fair amount of bending, CA AND clamping to get it to fit. After that, if was a putty fest.
Pretty annoying build; I'm just glad that I'm done with it. I was going to add some extra details and what-if it, but I lost interest:
The interior is pretty nice (thanks to Eduard and some scratchbuilding), but it can't be seen in this picture:
The front wheels turn! A miracle, because that assembly was mostly guesswork, thanks to blurry instructions and absolutely zero locating hints:
Here's Ivan from "Crazy Ivan's Used Armor Emporium", trying to make a sale on a barely used BRDM-1:
Ivan is from the ever popular (and pretty good) ICM "Modern Russian Tank Crew" on vacation in Afghanistan:
So, if you have this kit (or any Eastern Express BRDM-1 variant) in your stash, either lubricate your soul with plenty of vodka or use the kit for parts (not many usable parts, though)
