Hi all
pending the arrival of the masks to paint the CM-34, I’ll build this Russian low to medium altitude, short range anti-aircraft vehicle.
The box is packed with beige plastic sprues, one clear parts sprue, one PE sheet, one decals sheet, one length of twisted brass wire and a box of metal track links with metal pins.
The quality seems better than what I experienced with their M-ATV. Hopefully the build will confirm my in-box impression.
Here are the pictures of the content.
Olivier
Wow that looks to be a big vehicle, lots of parts.
Richard, it is a big vehicle. The turret itself is impressive as far as the parts count is concerned.
Olivier
Yeah the tracked missile firing and radar vehicles the Russians have are amazing. I’ll be following along Olivier,
I have just started building the beast with the suspension according to the instructions.
Step 1 deals with the sprockets, roadwheels and idlers. There is no marks to align the sprocket halves. So I decided to build a short run of tracks to get the correct alignment. Big surprise! The tracks are larger than the sprockets. Fortunately I had not glued the sprocket halves. No issue with the roadwheels and idlers. You just have to sand the mold line on the rubber tires.
Step 2 concerns the first elements of the suspension. And here you have the first mistake of numbering. If you always dry test the fit before putting the glue on the parts like I do it’s not a big deal. When you have assembled the side shown on the instructions you expect to shift to the other side.
Too easy! Panda just omitted this step. So back to step 2 and use the remaining parts on the sprues.
Then you read the next step to discover you had 2 options for the roadwheels and idlers. At this time you only have cleaned and glued 12 roadwheels and 2 idlers. I guess the quality control team at Panda did not bother with reading the instructions.
Here are the first pictures.
Olivier
Another nice build to follow 
Thank you Bert for following this build.
I nearly completed the lower hull. Panda again made some numbering mistakes and omitted parts in steps 3 and 4. Nothing a careful (and warned) modeler would not notice.
I also tested the metal tracks. I assembled a complete tracks with 114 links as per the instructions. The number is correct for a limited and realistic sag. Assembling the links is easy and very few links needed to be re-drilled, from memory 4 out of 114.
The axes are slightly larger at one end so you need to hammer them to secure the links. No glue needed.
Olivier
Very nice job so far Olivier
The second track is complete. In the end you have 28 links remaining but only 8 axes.
I have glued all the hatches around the upper hull. There is no need to release them as separate parts as I’m pretty sure the documentation to detail the compartments is close to null.
I have added some PE parts. All of them were too large and needed some trimming. One part was supposed to be bent into a round shape (the rounded plate to the left of the driver station). Unfortunately Panda did not give any template to get a correct shape. I did struggle some times before managing to put it more or less in the right place.
The last picture illustrates the notice discrepancies. In the yellow circle you are supposed to glue a part E7. Unfortunately the 8 E7 parts present on the sprues are already glued to the hull. So I’ll need to scratch it.
The red circles highligth parts with wrong numbering. Not unusual. But Panda innovated this time by numbering the parts with a non existing sprue letter and different numbers from those of the parts I finally discovered on another sprue.
And Panda did it again with the J12 part supposed to support the raised driver shutter. J sprue does not exist and the part itself does not exist on any of the sprues on the box.
As a side note you should notice that the (spare) tracks links are too thick for the plastic brackets. I had to sand them quite a lot to put them in place.
More progress tomorrow I hope.
Olivier
. . . yeah, how come the US Army doesn’t have any cool looking Rocket Blaster Mobiles?
Cajun 
Yeah we have HIMARS and MLRS but they don’t look as imposing despite the damage they can do lol
Those are ground to ground Artillery systems.
The TOR is an ADA piece. We (US) have THAAD, PATRIOT, Iron Dome, and STRYKER M-SHORAD as ADA systems. PATRIOT is the US equivalent to a TOR.
Oh yeah - that’s right . I stand corrected
I have added some more details to the upper hull. No bad surprise so far. You just have to clean the parts.
When you install the engine and the exhaust grilles take note that you should delete the plastic bolt heads underneath otherwise the PE ones will not properly sit.
Next time I’ll glue the hull halves together.
Olivier
The MLRS does look very S.H.A.D.O. - ish.
I continued the hull today. Now it only misses the headlights with their overhead protection and the missing part to scratch under the spare track links.
Olivier
Very nice build so far Olivier. This looks like a nice kit.
My goal was to complete the hull for this week-end and I achieved it. No surprises here. You only have to install the idlers and sprockets prior to gluing the side skirts (or whatever these are called). As the fit is quite tight no glue is required to fix the sprockets and idlers. This is perfect for the coming tracks installation.
Olivier
I have started the turret assembly this morning.
Again the instructions are not flawless.
On the RHS of the turret front the large part is supposed to hold only by the top part (5mmx5mm). The lower part is not in contact with the turret so I’ve added a bit of sprue to have a better resistance.
Olivier
I have had some big sessions on the turret detailing lately. With no surprise I discovered some more flaws in the instructions and the parts molding.
However I managed to assemble the tracking radar. It is mobile if you don’t glue the part H34 to the support.
Panda ask you to glue the large bins of both sides of the turret. I decided not to glue the left side one to facilitate the installation of the radar.
Olivier
