I play the game WWII online on the French side and have been building some of the units we use. There isn't much available.
Is the Heller 1/35 Somua S35 a good kit? More important that that, I understand it only comes with German marking which does me no good. I have googled around but have not been able to find where I could get French decals for it, any ideas?
Blast Models has just reprinted their sheet of French markings. Try here:
The Heller S35 is the ONLY kit of this tank in this scale, and is now pretty long in the tooth. It is a typical Heller kit (e.g. why use two parts to form an assembly when seven will do?) so very busy and with lousy tracks.
A new set of tracks, some putty and good markings should do a lot for it though.
Cookie Sewell
That being said, it is typical Heller quality for the late 70's/early 80's. Not bad, not great.
The kit was originally, I am fairly certain, originally released in French markings. The German marking and dust bin turret cupola were later additions for the balkenkreutz boys.
This one has French and German markings:
Bruce
It needs better tracks--it was re-released by Gunze Sangyo in the Asia market with individual link track, but Heller didn't buy those molds when they took the kit tooling back. I believe there is an aftermarket track set available from Friul, if memory serves. The turret isn't very accurate in shape, but there is an aftermarket resin item available. On The Mark Models in Colorado did a handy photoetch set for it 15 years ago--useful if you can find it. Fit isn't too bad--some of the hull parts need to be shimmed between the upper and lower halves. Heller missed some prominent mold lines on the original vehicle hull, so you can build those up with stretched sprue or thin rod melted in place with liquid cement. The mufflers should have cooling ribs on them--add them from plastic strip.
There's a seller on EBay called 'Decalomaniacs' who sell a set of decals for 1/35th scale French vehicles. Check out:-
What good are the FRench armor decals without a selection of numbers? Those are the hardest to reproduce in white.
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