It's huge!

My friends, I started the build by getting the boring parts out of the way ASAP :) 

There's a lot of wheels to clean and assemble. Because of this, I employed an AC drill for the first time. You lock the wheel into the drill's jaw, put a sanding sponge or a hobby knife below it, add RPM and you've got your own portable lathe! 

The kit is very well researched and the details are impressive. The only serious blunder Trumpeter made is in the instructions. As you might know, Karl Mortar had positionable suspension - it could be raised or lowered. Of course, I went with the firing position where the mortar is sitting on its belly, but Trumpeter claims it was the other way, which, obviously, doesn't make any sense. I've seen discussions online about how the suspension was meant to absorb some of the recoil, but that's just... no. The suspension would break after a few shots, and every historical photo or video ever shows the device laying on the ground while firing. 

The Masterclub metal tracks are nice as usual, and I don't envy anyone who'd like to try battling the warped rubber tracks from the kit! There's a small problem with the sag, though. When the mortar laid down on the ground, the sag increased quite significantly. But when you have track links that are almost 1 cm long in this scale, getting the right sag is impossible. When I added one extra link the tracks were straight up FLYING and some sections didn't even want to sit on the return rollers. So I went with what you see on the photos. Metal tracks tend to grow in length after they're weathered, so I'm counting on that. Or I can carefully stretch them during the weathering process. Or I'll find peace with the way they are. Fitting them onto the finished model will be painful enough! 

There's even some very nice detail in the inside of the hull. You can see the torsion bars, suspension adjusting mechanism, and the inner reinforced structure. There are some tiny details missing, but I'll add them once I get the upper hull in place. 

Oh, and it's an interesting experience to build something like this. You look at a part in the instructions, go look for it on the sprue expecting it to be some small detail and suddenly you see this massive hunk of plastic :D