AER

BA-11D Heavy Russian Armored Car

The kit includes 12 rubber tires, 8 plastic rims, 16 resin pieces, instructions and a large decal sheet.

The hull and the turret are cast solid and have some surface detail, but since the resin used is quite hard and brittle, many of the rivets and handles have been knocked off. The hull’s doors and hatches look very thick, but on the turret they look fairly nice, and actually, this latter might be the nicest part of the model. Chassis and the front part of the suspension are molded together with the lower hull and, consequently, look quite flat and simplified. There are also some small bubbles here and there, but nothing serious.

The worst part of the kit are definitely the tires. These are severely distorted by flash and poor molding. I have seen two of these models built (one can be seen here in the OTW Gallery) and in both cases the wheels were replaced with plastic ones from PST’s ZIS trucks. Another better option would be the resin Armory wheels for the GAZ-AA trucks (Kit AR AC7203).

A large decal set is provided, however it is labeled for the BM-13 Katyusha, and besides, the camouflage options proposed in the instruction sheet don’t show any markings for these vehicles.

Seeing some other resin kits from AER and the large amount of resin debris in my sample, I guess that some of the pieces were together in a resin film and got separated due to poor handling. It must have been a rough trip!

All in all this is a rather crude kit and, as far as I know, it’s also the only option in 1/72 scale for this armored car, though Military Wheels (MW) had announced one in plastic some years ago.

Article Last Updated: 15 January 2012