Type 89 Interior Views

Well the Mac-Daddy of Imperial Japanese armor kits has finally arrived! I've waited years for the Type 89 to be available in plastic and it looks as if it will have been worth the wait. The problem is the Type 89 has a large hatch on the front glacis that is just begging to be posed open and there is no interior with this kit. Zip. Zero. Nada. I have to wonder if the folks at Fine Molds are taunting me. So, here are my first steps at researching a scratchbuilt "through the hatch" interior for this kit. Hopefully they may be of use to someone else trying to do the same thing.

The Type 89 at Tsuchiura is restored to running condition but the interior is only roughed in. Many components are missing. I was able to find this image of where the firewall is supposed to be:

Of more help are the line drawings below. They are from an excellent article on the Type 89 found in an old issue of Wild Mook Magazine from the 1970's. I was able to translate the Japanese captions on some of the drawings. Hopefully I'll have time translate the whol article someday. Retirement can't be that far off can it? Many thanks to Tomas Enerdal for a scan of the article.