Thanks for your comments glad you like my tank.

@pattoncommander:

I did not put on the early fuel tanks as many of the original pics I used as a reference showed the fuel tanks missing, plus I like the characteristic slanting back on the T34 and the fuel tanks would have spoiled this in my opinion.

The ammo containers are Russian (not US) as they come with the T34/76 Trumpeter kit and are normally mounted inside the tank on the floor. I thought it highly likely that such as container would have been used by the troops as a container for other things as well and so used one in a closed state chained to the side of the tank. The other one with the shells in it depicts a reloading scene possibility and I must agree with you that it would not have remained there long and would not have been a sensible thing to do in a combat situation. (But with a loss ration of worse than 8:1 in was probably exactly the sort of field practice they carried out in reality) However as a modeller I could not resist the urge to show an ammo container partly open with the shells on view. I love shiny brass shell casings. Incidentally the shells were painted brass and then highlighted with gold. (all with Humbrol, the standard by which all other colours are measured).

The flamerthrower so far shoots out to about 10cms as shown in the first photo. I find that if I turn it up more than this the piezo igniter does not light up the gas, this may be a safety feature built into the nozzle of the oven lighter, perhaps the spark needs to occur further down the nozzle the more the gas supply is increased. I do not know but will experiment and report back. I want to work on the FT more to make it more reliable and a cleaner design, at the moment it is a bit cobbled together and shows more enthusiasm than construction prowess and clean design.

In theory your lighter fluid idea should work and one must simply replace the gas supply with fluid, with ignition by the same piezo setup. Either the fluid needs to be pressure driven or pushed by a pump. This would increase range and realism a lot.

Cheers

Alan.