Hobby Champions — Isaac Paul’s Japanese Tanks

MV – US Trade Salesman Isaac Paul is back again with another great hobby project. He’s taken a break from his Romanians, and headed off to the Pacific, returning with some Japanese tanks for Achtung Panzer! and Bolt Action. Do tell, Isaac!

IP – Japan’s armoured forces in World War II are a very interesting bit of history. Japan would field an unusual variety of tankettes and tanks, to varying degrees of effectiveness. A big reason for this was the constant competition for resources between the Army and Navy, as well as a general scarcity of those resources overall, and a slightly old-fashioned doctrine, meaning that Japanese tanks are often looked down upon as being inferior or obsolete.

The Malayan Campaign showed the effectiveness of Japanese armour against British light tanks. However things would change when the US started fielding Stuarts in 1941 and Shermans in 1942, and Japanese tankers found themselves significantly outgunned – particularly by the Sherman’s 75mm weapon. Some attempts were made to up-gun existing tanks, such as the Chi-Ha, and several larger designs with 75mm guns were drawn up based on German and Italian experiences in Europe and Africa, but these were confined to the Home Islands in preparation for the expected Allied invasion. I’d really recommend looking into this side of the war if you’re interested, as it’s not studied as broadly as it should be and contains some fascinating vehicles!

In anticipation of some of the new tanks getting rules in Achtung Panzer!’s new Iron Coffins supplement, I just had to get a small batch of Japanese tanks ready. My personal favorites are the Type 97 Chi-Ha and Type 3 Chi-Nu medium tank, so these were the first two on the workbench. Handily, I also had an extra Chi-Ha kit knocking around, and was able to make a second Chi-Ha in its ShinHoto (‘new turret’) variant. This gave me a nice little three-tank force of varying capabilities.

Assembling the tanks was an absolute cinch. The Chi-Nu resin and metal kit goes together incredibly quickly, and the plastic Chi-Ha kit is lovely to work with, and includes hull and turret options for the early and late war. In no time at all, I was ready to get painting. As I wanted to theme this force around homeland defence, I left off some of the pioneer tools (picks, shovels, track spanners, and the like) that come in the kits, to give the tanks a ‘just-out-of-the-factory’ appearance.

Japanese tank camouflage comes in quite a few variants, depending on whether the vehicles in question belong to the Imperial Japanese Army or Imperial Japanese Navy (yup, the Navy had their own tanks!). In keeping with my homeland defence theme I decided to paint my three in a semi-historical mid/late 1945 single primer coat scheme, similar to the red oxide primer used on German tanks. This is a theme that I’m planning to expand with a Japanese Bolt Action project, meaning these tanks can pull double-duty on the tabletop. I used the same scheme and method for all three tanks.

I started off with a red-brown over the entire vehicle for the base – I used Tamiya NATO Brown through my airbrush, but something like Army Painter’s Chaotic Red spray would work nicely as well. As it’s an overall scheme and I left off many of the little ‘greebles’, that just left the tracks and road wheels needing attention, which I gave them with Army Painter Grim Black and Vallejo German Grey. I followed this by giving the entire tank a thin coat of an Army Painter Dark Tone Wash to bring the brightness of the red down.

Once the basecoat was dry, I went in and added some wear and chipping as a highlight on the edges of the model. To contrast with the red of the hull, I went for a blue-grey mix, and then followed it up with a drybrush of Army Painter Shining Silver to give the effect of a bare steel edge showing through the paint.

Next, I gave the whole model a coat of gloss varnish. This enables the decals and enamel paints I used subsequently to apply smoothly and easily. This (naturally) made the tank very glossy, but this would only be temporary – I’d knock it back with a final coat of matte varnish at the end of the process! When it came to the decals, I simply went with the ‘rule of cool’ – I chose markings that I liked the look of, and put them in locations that helped the tank ‘pop’ visually.

Once the decals had dried, I applied a black enamel ‘pin wash’ to the recesses and around raised areas like rivets. This technique helps these details stand out, and also deepens the red of the hull.

At this stage, the tank was really starting to come together. I gave the lower parts of the turret and hull a quick dusting of a beige-grey with my airbrush, to give the impression of a slight build-up of dust and grime, and applied a dark mud texture paste sparingly to the running gear and hull bottom. These little touches are something that can really elevate a model, and I think they’re always well worth doing. The very last jobs were to give the whole tank a coat of matte varnish to remove the glossy look, and then gently go over the bare metal highlighted areas with a pencil to bring back the metallic sheen – this is a trick I really like!

With that, the tank was done (well, the tanks – I followed this process for all three, doing each stage on them together), and ready for the tabletop. I’m really happy with these, and I can’t wait to see how they’ll do on the Achtung Panzer! and Bolt Action tabletop!