# Zvezda (Italeri) ZIS-3 Gun with MiniArt Figures



## Owen E Oulton (Jan 6, 2012)

I was so happy with my little dio of an AER Moldova GAZ-67B towing an Italeri ZIS-3 ( http://www.hobbytalk.com/bbs1/170-military-aircraft-models/542218-gaz-67b-towing-zis-3-76mm-gun.html ) that I picked up another Italeri ZIS-3 (this time reboxed by Zvezda) and a set of WWII Soviet Artillery Crew by MiniArt for another diorama.

















I just assembled the gun and the figures. I placed the gun in an elevated position, fully recoiled with the breech open in order to show it in the midst of an artillery barrage. While the ex-Italeri gun is a beautiful kit (even considering it's a 40-year-old tooling), the figures are typical 1970's Italeri - utter trash, but with useable accessories. I picked up the MiniArt figures as I'd really liked the ones I used in the GAZ67B-ZIS3 diorama. These ones didn't fit quite as well and had some minor flash on one of the rifles, but they're still great figures. I intend to used a similar MDF base, this time with tall grass. I got a MiniArt ammo box from a friend which closely matches the one a figure is carrying in the figure set and posed it open with the five shells from the ZIS-3 kit inside, as well as a generic "wooden" crate of the same dimensions from an old Italeri accessory set. The gun also came with four expended shell casings, and the figure set with two shells to be held by the loaders, so I can depict them in the midst of action. I'm also using two MiniArt Soviet rifle ammo boxes to fill out the scene. I'll post pics once I'm done.

Edit: While the box art for the MiniArt figures shows the kneeling officer with the binocs as having a binocular case on his belt. Nothing of the lie is included in the kit, however, so I took a 1/32 Airfix Multipose German mess tin which seems to be the right size and shape and glued it in place. Even the colour of the styrene matched (though of course that won't show after painting...).


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