Now that’s a complete picture of what’s available! Thanks so much it is very much appreciated, let me have a look see and then it’s off to the purchase for some fun and excitement here on the bench.
~ Eddy 
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This is the ancient Heller kit built ca. 1988 with the kit tracks and the On the Mark PE detail set. There are a number of minor issues with geometry and dimensions. I wouldn’t recommend it today, especially with the new Tamiya kit available.
It can be built, but really not worth the extra work and effort.
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For its time that is a nice build! You should be proud, excellent camouflage. I like the imbedded turf on the running gear and tracks it really looks the part. Time well spent. 1988 huh, that been a while. Thanks for sharing this very inspirational 3D artwork.
~ Eddy
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I think that Heller is making some pretty old and ancient kits in comparison what is on the market today.
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Unfortunately I guess you’re right…Their current limited (…and thinning out) 1/35th scale range is mostly made of old kits and their last true novelty in 1/35th scale was (AFAIK) the VBCI… released in 2012 !
H.P.
In 1941, Bulgarian Royal Army purchased 40 Renault R35 tanks from the Third Reich.The willingness of Germany to sell those vehicles was warmly welcomed and their arrival was celebrated.
Till the first training.
It appeared, that fumes extraction after firing the MG(not even the main gun) was so insufficient, that turret hatch had to be kept open all time, otherwise the TC got knocked down.The tanks lacked radio sets too and suffered from unreliable engine performance.
Intended initially to equip 4 Armored Companies in what was soon to become The Armored Brigade, all R35’s were quickly demoted to training purposes and scrapped in 1945, without firing a single shot in battle.
The R35 mishaps hurted the reputation of French tanks with Bulgarian tankmen so much, that when in 1943 the Reich offered to substitute the ordered, but OOP, Pz.I’s with some Hotchkiss H39 and Somua’s S35, the proposal was met with stiff resistance from Bulgarian side.
Eventually 19 H35 arrived in Bulgaria, but the Army got rid of them immediately, transferring them to the Ministry of Interior/Gendarmerie.
Cheers,
Angel
if you can read french, I’d suggest reading the last truck & tank no 84 and the hors série 37 on french tank http://www.trucks-tanks.com/
Thank you for sharing this story.
I’m finding this information interesting, because I didn’t know these facts of these tank already.
Could you tell us more about this? Continuing on this story?
Do you have any idea what could’ve caused the poor fume extraction?
I suppose this wasn’t the case while they were into French service during the Battle of France.
And what could’ve cause the engine problems?
Did they use them a lot for very large distance traveling?
I found from an video on YouTube that the engine sound is very noisy and no pleasure at all to listen to.
But why did make that engine so much noise?
Thanks for contributing on this topic, I hope you want to contribute even more to this.
Sorry, I’m not able to read French.
It has to be translated, for example with the Trackstory’s I was able to read.
I definitely would NOT recommend the old Heller R-35 kit to anyone given the much better options available today.
In regard to the employment history, consider also that some vary small number of R-35’s were employed by the Axis against the Allied landings in Sicily. There were also a small number of them in Vichy French North Africa at the time of the Allied TORCH landings.
The Germans actually offered hundreds of R-35’s to the Italians in 1941 when the Italians were asking for tanks to deploy to Libya. However, the Italians wanted German tank models (to be maned by Italian crews), so they turned the offer down.
Most of the tanks Italy had weren’t much better than the R35s.
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Very true. However, the main problem that the Italians had was in the area of actual production. At their very best they were only managing to manufacture about 60 M13/14 tanks per month. Even at this low rate, though, it’s interesting to note that there were periods of the fighting in Libyan deserts when Italian tanks made of the majority of all the tanks available to the Axis, and there were also brief periods when Italian tanks actually outnumbered ALL other tanks, both German and British.
At the time of its introduction, the M13 was on par with all of the other Vickers tank knock-offs being fielded by other armies (Soviet T-26, the Polish 7TP, etc.). The Italians were never able to actually replace it with an evolved / modernized design before it was too late. Even the P40 was essentially obsolete before it even rolled off the assembly line.
It would have been a interesting change in history had the Italians accepted the offer for the 350 or so R-35 tanks and then managed to get most of them to their forces in Libya at a time before the British and Commonwealth forces there started to receive larger numbers of tanks. Things might have gone a bit differently for O’Connor and operation COMPASS had the Italians been reinforced with another 200 or so tanks before December, 1940.
During the period between Dunkirk and the start of the Battle for Britain air war, the Germans also offered the Italians one (and possibly two) German panzer divisions for North Africa if the Italians would be willing to time an attack against Egypt to coincide with their planned operation SEA LION (the invasion of Britain).
The Italians also turned this offer down. One has to wonder how the course of the war might have gone differently had the equivalent of the Afrika Korps been in place and combined with the Italians during their initial attack towards Egypt in September, '40.
Oh well, the subject is the R-35… LOL!
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R35 and H39 were extensively used by the Germans in former Yugoslavia on anti partisan duties, as they were well suited to be driven on small mountain roads. At least 3 units used those tanks (Pz Abt 202, 7SS, ZbV 12), and partisans used the captured ones against Germans. After the war, they were used for training of Yugoslav tank crews, and were clandestinely sold to Israel.
As far as the models are concerned, i am building a venerable Heller with Trumpeter workable tracks
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The tracks are without a doubt the weakest features of the Heller kit.
Thank you all for your reply’s.
It is interesting to see how topics can change when we were actually talking about one topic.
In this case, the Renault R35.
However, I think the Italians are also an interesting topic to talk about.
Because, when I’m looking at those things or read stuff about the Italians or axis operations in general.
I’m wondering, what if this or that happened?
Would that have made the difference?
So it isn’t to bad that topics can switch around, as long as it holds some connection to the current topic.
And we must be able to switch back to the actual topic without much trouble.
Thanks again for your reply’s and your contributions.