I had the Tamiya T72, built quite a while ago, OOB, and went to move it to dust the display case. The tracks had stuck to the glass in the display case, and separated from the model, mostly. It went in the to-do pile from there, to collect yet more dust. As luck would have it, I scored a set of Friuls at a very good price, good enough that I thought I would re-do this thing. A Trump/HobbyCraft knock-off of the Tamiya kit was scored from the consignment shelf at a LHS and I was in business. The Trump kit seems to have copied the Tamiya kit without any research at all, as it has the same warts and oopsies the Tamiya kit does. In fact, parts interchange. The only difference that I could see, aside from slightly softer detail, was a poor shot at the anti-radiation cladding on the turret roof, different (later?) smoke dischargers, and the 3rd turret bin. The turret is still too small, and the added/thickened cheek armor is not there. Initially, I wanted to do a Finnish tank, but the camo put me off, plus I liked the look of the 3rd turret bin.
So what I have is a technically inaccurate hybrid, but I wanted to do it anyway, as much for fun as anything else. Plus, I like the look of the T72…
I added the thickened turret cheeks with Squadron Green putty. Epoxy putty would have been much better, but I was out. I filled all the poor attempts at the roof armor and sanded it smooth, but not off, wanting to try to add some of the missing bulk to the kit turret. detail parts are a combination of Trump and Tamiya. Not sure which style smoke dischargers I’ll use, but probably the cluster on the port side, since it’s closer to accurate with the three turret bins. Turret is coated with MrSurfacer now, working on details.
Any comments welcome.
