Schneider CA by DocRob - HobbyBoss - 1/35 - PLASTIC - WWI Tank Dinosaur With a Twist

[DocRob]

I´m in a midsummer modelling funk right now, I opened many boxes, but got no motivation to build the kits. My latest projects had been demanding long term builds and I felt bored by the idea of simply snipping plastic from a sprue. 
The Schneider CA was sleeping in my stash since some years and now I pulled it out, as a simple in between travel, swimming, surfing, biking, barbecuing and whatever else comes to mind build.

The Schneider CA was the first operational French tank, first used in 1916. The off road capabilities were limited and it had another serious design flaw. The petrol tanks were positioned on the roof and could be hit easily, which gave the tank the nickname "Rolling Crematory".
400 of these were built and 6 were sold to Spain, where they were used in Maroc in 1922 and lastly by Spanish Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War in 1936, which lead to my title, because by then, it was an obsolete design.



The kit is from Hobby Boss and represents the up armored late model, needed for the FC Model Tips conversion. The kit is of relatively high quality, but some parts could be more refined. Sprue attachment points seem to be placed at random and some parts have prominent parting lines. There are also some errors in the manual and some placements are only shown vaguely. In all, it´s an easy build with a fiddly three piece per link track, which I will substitute with a set of Friul white metal tracks.

The FC Model Tips conversion set contains some resin parts, which address the changes made from the late model, mainly the new rear tanks, a gunport in the front hull section, a manhole cover as extra armor and a few bits and pieces. A decal sheet for all the Spanish tanks is supplied, be it the 1922 Maroc version or the later 1936 Madrid version.
The resin is of relatively bad quality, with imperfections and bubbles and huge cast blocks, but nothing, that couldn´t be overcome.

Cheers Rob

[ccoyle]

My goodness, we are having a rash of homely WW1 tanks around here! Interesting models, nonetheless, but definitely not winning any beauty contests -- if there were such a thing for tanks. 😉

[DocRob]

14 minutes ago, ccoyle said:

My goodness, we are having a rash of homely WW1 tanks around here! Interesting models, nonetheless, but definitely not winning any beauty contests -- if there were such a thing for tanks. 😉

Two times right, Chris, there are some other interesting builds and yup, these beasts are ugly, but I like the crude unrefined looks of these behemoths. There is one exception which I nearly chose to build, the Romfell armored car, which somehow looks like a steam punk Bat Mobile.

Cheers Rob 

[DocRob]

I have the feeling, this will be a short build log, I´m not used to put something together in only a few hours. I started with the under carriage, which consists on maybe half the parts count. It´s a bit fragile during construction, but in the end, it´s robust enough. Some parts like the coil springs look a bit toyish, but there will be dust and mud, so I didn´t bother. Fit was good, engineering was - hmmh - hobbybossish.



Next was the boxy body, which luckily is build up from a one piece tub. I needed to make some surgery, to add the front gun port, which only had some of the Spanish vehicles. Here the position is shown, clearly measured in the manual.



I added the gun port in front and the huge external tanks at the back. The cabin built up straight forward without issues. In contrast to the early version of the tank, this one was up-armored with additional steel plates, riveted on top of the body.





Cheers Rob

[king derelict]

This looks really interesting. I’m looking forward to following developments. I’m feeling I should get my Flyhawk Renault FT-17 off the pile and join in.

Alan

[gsdpic]

I'm not a tank person, but I'll follow along.  And yes the phrase "steam punk bat mobile" caused me to google "Romfell armored car"

 

[RGL]

Sweet, this is my next built OOB! I got it dirt cheap and look forward to following you!

[DocRob]

12 hours ago, king derelict said:

This looks really interesting. I’m looking forward to following developments. I’m feeling I should get my Flyhawk Renault FT-17 off the pile and join in.

Thank you Alan, good to have you on this (short?) ride. Isn´t your FT-17 in 1/72? This tiny tank in that scale, urgh, I feel my eyes watering .

Cheers Rob 

[DocRob]

10 hours ago, gsdpic said:

I'm not a tank person, but I'll follow along.  And yes the phrase "steam punk bat mobile" caused me to google "Romfell armored car"

When I see my Romfell kit, I always think about a steam punk modified version, made from patinaed copper and bronze, but without the Batman twist.

Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

9 hours ago, RGL said:

Sweet, this is my next built OOB! I got it dirt cheap and look forward to following you!

You can´t go wrong with the kit Greg, it´s far from perfect, but there are no serious issues. The supplied tracks are fiddly to build, as there is no guiding aid for assembling the single track links and clean up is tedious. I opted for Friul tracks for a Renault FT-17, which have the same links.

Cheers Rob 

[DocRob]

Today, I finished building the Schneider minus the tracks. Almost everything worked like a breeze and the fit of the body parts was very good. The manual suggests to add the side MG´s with their gun carriage glued to the base of the tub and then add the sidewalls with the fitting hole on. That was somehow impossible to achieve and I suggest to cut away the lower part of the gun carriage and glue the ball mount direct to the side wall hole.





Cheers Rob

[DocRob]

While preparing the track construction, I realized, I needed to add the running gear to the hull, to be able to determine the length of the tracks. I would have liked to add them after painting, but that wouldn´t be a big problem. 
The spoked rear wheel is still movable and not glued in place, because with it´s eccentric arm, it can be used to tighten the track.



Then I started with the tracks. Every link consist from two parts, which need to be drilled out with a 0,5 mm bit and then glued together with CA. It proved to be very difficult and time consuming to put the links together and then connect them with the next link, that´s why I leaned back and thought about another way, to simplify the construction. 
I found it much easier to connect the inner link parts with wire and secure them with CA and then finally add the running pads, which fell in place and were glued with CA.
The HobbyBoss manual suggests 32 links per side, but I will need 34, possibly 33, but that might be millimeter too short.





Cheers Rob

[king derelict]

On 8/31/2025 at 4:46 AM, DocRob said:

Thank you Alan, good to have you on this (short?) ride. Isn´t your FT-17 in 1/72? This tiny tank in that scale, urgh, I feel my eyes watering .

Cheers Rob 

Hi Rob, yes the FT-17 is 1/72. I opened the box and the hull is above 1/4 the length of the 1/700 destroyers about the size of a matchbox. I’m tempted to start gluing bits together.

alan

[DocRob]

I got the tracks done, thanks to my established second effort, it went rather quick. It is much faster to build a chain of the inner track links and then the track pads drop in place with a bit of CA. Building up every track link from two parts and then connect them would have extremely more time consuming.
I needed 34 links per side, which results in a loose fit, but there are no half links . The manual suggests 32 per side, but the plastic ones may be different.
I will blacken the tracks later with a burnishing fluid. Unfortunately my black CA glue dried up, which will lead to non blackened areas, where there are CA residues. 

One pad fell off and is reglued now. The closing link remains without pad until I finally mount them. 





Cheers Rob

Edited September 4 by DocRob

[DocRob]

After a fellow modeler over on LSM  mentioned it, I opened the Meng FT 17 box and found the tracks to be ready cut and easy click and after 10 minutes, I had two with the suggested length of 32 links per side. There are some spare links as well. They don´t look bad and I may use the Meng plastic ones for the Schneider, where they are not so visible.
Meanwhile the Schneider itself got black primed with Mr. Surfacer 1000.





Cheers Rob

[RGL]

Looking good mate! 

[DocRob]

As I mentioned above, the twist with this build will be, that this outdated fossil from 1916 was still in use in 1936 in the Spanish Civil war with the Republican forces against Franco´s Nationalists.
I guess, over their period of duty, the six? Spanish tanks served in Maroc and with their age, I assume, their state of maintenance not to be the best. I will try to show this appearance through the camo paintjob, which was sprayed translucent and freehand over the black primer, with heavily thinned AK Real colors. I made a second pass with both colors, adding a drop of Insignia White and tried to work a bit with highlight, shadow and modulation, which is not easy with a non-monochrome body.
Anyway, that will be the starting point for further painting and weathering stages and of course for decals.





Cheers Rob

[RGL]

Nice paintwork 

[DocRob]

What would be a tank used by Spanish Anarcosindicalistas without a little agit prop  . Decals were very thin and most were good to work with, but some disintegrated and needed to be repaired.





Cheers Rob

[king derelict]

Looks great Rob. The graffiti makes it a very different tank. Lovely. I need to go and read Homage to Catalonia again.

alan

[DocRob]

10 hours ago, king derelict said:

Looks great Rob. The graffiti makes it a very different tank. Lovely. I need to go and read Homage to Catalonia again.

Thank you Alan, I liked the look of that Spanish version instantly, when I saw it first and added the Schneider kit later. I just recently re-read some of Hemingway´s books again and traveled a bit in his footsteps, but that was merely by accident and not intentional. Last year, we have been to Pamplona, where he wrote "The Sun Also Rises" and had our coffee in the lovely belle epoque Cafe Irun. This June, we have been to Valencia and had the same room like him in the beautiful Hotel Reina Victoria. Unfortunately the often mentioned classic hotel bar didn´t exist anymore.

Cheers Rob