Gun Tech

My journey down the rabbit hole is advancing rapidly. I went from no RC experience (much less tanks), to getting a Tamiya Leopard 1A4 chassis operational, to ordering a Taigen KV-2. It arrived yesterday and overall, I am quite pleased, but speaking as a novice, I have some observations. The tank is neatly packaged, but that did not prevent some minor damage to one of the track fender ribs and a crack in the top of the turret by the periscope. These are not faults I am overly concerned with and I don't feel that Taigen was resposible, I'm just noting that even with good packaging, the mail can still find a way to hammer stuff. I put in some batteries for the radio and dropped in my charged battery from my Leopard. The tank has a nice start up sound, however there is no acceleration sound, it merely goes to a steady running sound when you start moving, regardless of speed. Now I understand why there is a great deal of discussion regarding aftermarket sound/control units. So I guess I will have to study up on that field. Driving it was quite enjoyable, with no lack of power at all speeds. The tracks are fairly slick and it is possible to spin the tracks easily on concrete, but moving along grass seemed just fine and climbing over bricks was great. Compared to the single motor/dual clutch of the Leopard, driving at speed with the dual motors of the KV-2 made it difficult to make gentle turns and I had a tendency to have the tank do a super spin, even with gradual stick input. I realize this may be a matter of technique, but I want to mention it so that other owners that are new to the field are not frustrated by it. The turret operates smoothly for rotation and elevation, but fine adjustments of the turret are touchy and elevation/depression is on an eccentric cam with a uni-drectional motor, so it has to fully cycle to elevate or depress to your aiming point. The airsoft seems to work fine and will get the attention of your friends if you "accdentally" shoot them in certain places. Recoil action is very nice. Aesthetically, this is a mass produced product, not a lovingly handcrafted custom, so the paint scheme is understandably basic and needs some fine tuning if your tastes scream for accuracy. My eventual hopes are to convert this to an SU-152 once I get a bit of skill at modelling, since my tastes would love to see a battle weary example "junkyard dog look". By the way, this is a substantial chunk of metal and plastic that weighs about 12-14lbs.That is about all I can say from my limited experience, but I want to say that the people at Taigen are making a fantastic product for the price point. I already have a T-34/85 on order, so as I said, I am headed down the rabbit hole at full speed. I still haven't found the cable to put pictures on my computer from my phone, but the tank looks just like it is shown on the web.

Mark

P.S. Erik, if you see this, I looked on the Imex parts page and don't see an upper deck for a KV-1/KV-2, any chance of finding a spare if I do the SU-152 build?