Hotchkiss H35 was a cavalry tank, designed to be fast enough for cavalry. His counterpart Renault R35 was slower and it was an infantry tank. They shared a lot of components, most notably the turret with main gun SA18 (37mm) and vision slits. During upgrades, both tanks were altered with different vision slits and better gun. The tank suffered from design shortcomings - a one-man turret that overwhelmed its occupant to be gunner, loader and commander in a cramped space. Furthermore, lack of radios (provided for only several tanks per company) meant that communication should be conducted using various flags. The commander cupola had no openings (like German ones), so the commander had to expose himself sitting on the rear of the turret, waving appropriate flags to communicate with other tanks. That meant he was vulnerable to small arms fire, the one thing tanks were designed to be impenetrable. That leads to another shortcoming, a lack of lights, as during night communication with flags was impossible, which limited usability of this tank. Of course, there were tanks equipped with radios, but many French radios were limited to Morse code...
The model is based on Trumpeter H38 with vision slits, wheels, engine deck, exhaust and ventilation ports from an ancient Heller kit backdating it to H35. Tracks were link by link.
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