Tatra OA vz. 30 1/72 First to Fight

I have already presented here in 1/72 scale the Tatra OA vz. 30 from the Planet Models resin kit in 2022. This happened just a very short time before the Polish company First to Fight released this model as a beautiful plastic model kit. I couldn’t resist and bought one and after finishing it I had to buy and build another one again…

You can read all about the history of this armoured car and its 1/72 resin model in my previous article, now we take a closer look at a fairly fresh kit from Poland. A total of three versions have been released to this day. From the first kit from 2022, you can build one of six Slovak cars in the original (Czechoslovak) three-colour camouflage and one German Ordnunspolizei machine in an all-green coat. The kit also remembers the differences between Czech/Slovak and German machines, there is also a German light “notek” here. The second released kit covers various variants of grey German machines Panzerspähwagen 30(t) of unspecified units (I found combinations for two to three machines, so it depends on you), again in addition to the “notek”, a new sprue with different lights, direction indicators and vehicle width indicators. The last, third kit release from 2023 represents the German Panzerspähwagen 30(t) “Funkkraftwagen” (radio car), the manufacturer has added one more sprue including the frame antenna and some extra equipment, the decal sheet here is identical to the previous German kit.

The kit parts are very nice with crisp details, for example, here we have a fair complete chassis, including engine sump and full-length exhausts, beautiful wheels, complete machine guns, opened turret hatch and small details faithfully representing the different versions. Everything is sharply injected, with no or minimum flash and no sink marks. I made very few modifications – added an engine block from a piece of sprue, replaced the vehicle width indicators from plastic with new from a wire, drilled out the muzzles of the machine guns, glazed the headlights and replaced the base of identification plates. You can complete the construction even with these modifications in one relaxed day – with using instant glue even much faster! The decals are printed sharp and well-saturated, the topcoat is thin, and it looks like this is a traditionally high-quality Techmod decal.

First, I built the grey German Panzerspähwagen 30(t) vehicle from the second box with the “Tatra” lettering on the sides as a compare model to the resin three-colour Tatra (which now, next to these new kits looks like “a poor relative”, mainly from a view from below). I did not follow the instructions while applying decals but rather used the Jakab book as a reference (see the article linked in the introduction).

I enjoyed the construction so much that shortly afterwards I bought the first box from which I built the machine of the German Police Regiment II. from Brno 1939 in an all-green coat, again I preferred to follow the photos from Jakab for decals…

I can’t rule out that I will get this beautiful and even simple Polish kit for the third time and build a German radio car. Anyway, those who don’t have this Tatra OA 30 kit in 1/72 yet – don’t hesitate. I dare to say – they will never be better than these now!