I am currently building the old Revell T-34/85 kit (which is somewhere between 1/35 and 1/40; not sure
of the precise scale)
I’d be interested to know if there are any serious inaccuracies/omissions in the model which I need to correct (I wouldn’t be surprised if there were plenty, as it must be one of the earliest large-scale AFV kits - the moulds date back to 1958), or anything I need to add.
I have already removed the main gun muzzle brake (definitely not fitted to any WW2 T-34/85s, and I’ve never seen it on a post-war one either) and drilled out a hole for the co-axial machinegun on the mantlet, to the lower left of the main gun.
I’m intending to build and paint the model as a late-WW2 Soviet vehicle. I’ll probably hand-paint some of the markings and use others from my spares box, as the kit decal sheet seems to represent a post-war vehicle in “parade” condition (I don’t think Soviet vehicles in service normally carried large red stars)
Anyway - any help would be appreciated from anyone out there who’s built one of these kits in the past.
(BTW - For any kit collectors out there who have just had heart attacks at the thought of me actually building a valuable collectors item - don’t worry, it’s only the 1990s reissue with the old box art and instruction leaflet, not the original 60s-vintage kit!)
Could anyone help me with this? I’m a bit reluctant to do any more work on the
model in case I add something which I shouldn’t, or which makes it harder to add scratchbuilt/converted parts
Unfortunately I don’t have any good plans or large photos of a real T-34/85 to compare the kit to.
The only Revell T-34 I know of is this one (lower right):
That’s an old kit I built about 30 years ago!
I don’t recall it having any kind of muzzle brake, so I’m not sure if we’re talking about the same kit or not. As you can see compared to the 1/48 Aurora M46 and M4A3E8 next to it, it is indeed about 1/40 scale.
To be honest, there is very little about this kit that is accurate, a trait shared by most kits from that period. From the small details to the overall shapes and dimensions, it is loaded with “serious inaccuracies and omissions.”
It is, essentially, a caricature of a T-34, and as such, I can see little point in trying to “accurize” it. With the plethora of inexpensive and accurate T-34 kits available on the market today, you’d be much better off getting another kit, if you want an accurate T-34/85.
My recommendation would be to build it OOB and enjoy it for what it is; a snapshot of the state of the modelling industry as it was in the late Fifties.
That’s what I’m going to do with my old 1/32 Renwal M-47. Straight OOB, and I may even follow the crazy instruction sheet that tells the builder to paint all the light guards and lifting eyes gloss black and silver, among other silly things, just to highlight how things were in the old days. Kind of like a “history of modelling” build!
Right now I’m doing just that with an old Revell “Jet Commando” series B-52 (one of the first models I ever had) I picked up at a specialty shop last week. I’m doing it OOB, and I’m going to paint it per the instructions and box art.
Of course, it’s your model and yours to build as you like, but if you want my opinion, there it is! [:D]
Thanks for the info!
Well, it looks like a late-war T-34 to me, caricature or not, so I’ll just build it out of the box
and correct/add things that I have reference info for, such as the muzzle brake.
I bought this kit cheaply on Ebay (about £5) and thought it would be interesting to build, never having built
a really early AFV kit before!
