Bedspring Armour (SU960) - Review

Hello there, Fez here with a review of the new SU960 Bedspring Armour upgrade blister.

The finished article

When the Bedspring Armour was first announced in the recent Berlin book, I must admit that I hadn't heard of it before! I was excited to add these to an IS-2 based Berlin list, however when they were added to the Hero Tankovy list from Desperate Measures I knew I needed to get some.

After a quick Google, it was evident that this is quite a popular subject for scale modellers, its unique look certainly breaks up the monotony of T34's. These kits often involve etched Brass, a fiddly, delicate and time consuming solution that looks great on a scale model, but would fall apart in seconds in a game...

New plastic blister

Battlefronts solution is a sturdy one piece plastic component, that can be simply added to existing models. The new blister packaging looks like a simple stop gap measure to enable the new sprues to be sent out without a box, and mine got a little abused in the post - not an issue, the contents were fine!

Front and Back of a sprue

The Bedsprings have a mounting lug on each corner, as well as two additional ones mid-span on the double width pieces. Snipping these out with a good pair of sidecutters was easy, the sprue having enough flex not to bend/snap the plates as they were removed - a quick clean up of the cut mark and they were ready to mount.

Although all the pictures I could find were of T34/85's with the Armour, the ultimate assault tank in my eyes is the T-34/76. With its wide tracks, its much more at home ploughing into infantry in woods, add that with tank escorts and you've got 10 swings at Vet (assuming they all get in!), and now with an improved 4+ Faust save!

With that said, The T34/76's Turret is slightly smaller than the 85's, meaning I couldn't get two single panels side by side as per the 85. I settled for one centrally mounted, however as I don't want all my tanks looking the same, I'll move these on the rest of the platoon (and may well try squeezing two on for a particularly paranoid commander!).

I found the Turret Top plate would only fit with the closed Cupola hatch, as it fouled the open one. Its a tight squeeze, but I think it looks cool (and mirrors the historical pictures I could find)

I was worried about the tool box and tools that are moulded onto the T34 hull, and didn't want to have to cut them off - as it is, by trimming the mounting peg off the plates lay smoothly.

With 'standard' fuel tanks

Without fuel tanks

Having already sprayed and painted my tanks, I attached the plates with small dabs of superglue and tweesers.

I painted the plates as per the guide on Battlefronts website, as I guess they would have been plain mild steel - this would have quickly rusted, giving the nice contrast in colours. Due to the vagaries of digital photography, these are a tad more orange in the 'flesh' so to speak. I should mention that I spray under coated the plates on the sprue, then applied the base coat brown. Its every easy to fill the holes with paint, so less is more is the way to go. Once glued on, I then touched up the ends and finished the rust effect. I wouldn't recommend glueing these on before painting the tank, as it would be a real pain to cover the tank underneath the plates!

All that armour and he still sticks his head out!

Boooiinnngggg! No faust for you Jerry!

All in all, I think this is a well thought out addition to the range. The final product is sturdy, and looks great. I'll have an update on how these work with the tank rider models in a later 'Road to Art of War Too' post next week, however I don't think there will be any issues.

When buying the armour, don't forget that you can 'gun tank' on-to (and away from) bed-spring armoured tanks - don't leave your Company/platoon commander as an easy kill by having him equipped differently!!

Thanks for reading,

Fez