More than half a century ago, a column of tracked all-terrain vehicles designed and built in Kharkiv, Ukraine made an unprecedented crossing of Antarctica. On snowy ice pack and unforgiving terrain, these vehicles – named “Kharkovchankas” – covered 2,700 km in high winds and temperatures as low as –80o C (–112o F), eventually reaching the South Pole
A Kharkovchanka making its way across the Antarctic
Since no kits of the Kharkovchanka exist, I used the Trumpeter P-40/1S12 mobile radar (no. 05969) as a starting point for my conversion. It provided a chassis, tracks, and driver cabin, with everything else having to be scratch built
I started with the tracks which were widened on the real vehicle by welding 0.75 m wide steel bars to reduce the pressure on soft snow. I cemented 1.5mm L-profile Evergreen strips on each link
I built the driver’s cabin out of the box. The cabin has crisp details and includes some PE parts to attach radio equipment inside the cabin, grills, and engine cover tie-downs
The completed cabin
Cabin interior
Dry fitting the cabin on the kit chassis is shown here. This is pretty much the extent of what I used from the Trumpeter kit, everything else was built from scratch
I started by creating cardboard cutouts to confirm size, proportions, angles, and cutouts before committing to styrene
The living quarters access door
I scribed all riverts on the superstructure sidings with a Trumpeter "riveter" tool
The sidings of the superstructure were reinforced with styrene rod and tubing, and assembled
The superstructure with roof accessories under construction. Note the thermal blankets installed over the hood to keep the engine warm
I painted and weathered Miniart crates and oil drums for roof cargo and played with the composition until I had a good idea of the result I was after
Playing with composition of roof cargo
I primed the superstructure with Stynylrez gray primer
I mixed my own orange with one part Tamiya XF7 Flat Red and two parts Tamiya XF3 Flat Yellow. I first sprayed a gloss white stripe half-way through the superstructure, and after masking it, sprayed the rest orange
The tall mast is made out of brass tubing. I fabricated two anchor points to attach reinforcing cables, and used EZ Line for cabling. Insulators were simulated by a small dot of acrylic white paint
I fabricated and painted the orange light on top of the mast from a piece of clear sprue
The radar dome was shaped from a spare, and the platform is styrene sheet and rod.
I found the clear acrylic dome at a crafts store. I sprayed it with flat varnish to weather it a little
The final model on its platform with a Paracel figure to provide a sense of scale I spent about 160 hours over 2 ½ months on this project, which presented many construction and painting challenges.
This side-by-side photo shows the model above and the actual vehicle below for comparison