Seems to be on part with the rest of their 1/48 scale kits. As with the others, I won’t be getting one, but I’m really interested to see some of these built up and finished:
http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/48/tamiya/tam32515.htm
It looks like a beautiful kit, and the scale (and price) is right for making a diorama with multiple vehicles – the way T-34s ought to be shown!
Is the T-34 an icon of Allied victory in Europe, though?
I hope that someone will show a dio with several T-34s rolling on the Russian steppes, with some destroyed Wehrmacht machinery. Such a typical image of the rolling red tide.
lol, I know what you mean about it not being exactly iconic of the Allied victory. If anything, it can be iconic of the downfall of Berlin, but I wouldn’t carry it any further than that [:)]
IMHO I think it is IRONIC that the US Army passed on the Christie design. Perhaps if they had not, we could have entered the war with a T-34 and shortened the conflict considerably. A tank that was easier to mass produce than the Sherman, markedly superior on the battlefield, with sloped armor would have, IMHO shortened the war and saved lives.
Steve
Thanks for the link, Zoran!
It is indeed a mother-beautiful kit (and tank!).
Five or six and a Tiger, and you’ve got yourself an action-packed dio!
Not to wander ridiculously far off topic, but …
Although I’ll be the first one to jump in on the Sherman’s myriad faults, I think the problem went far deeper than not wanting to work with Christie. I think the problem really resulted from the mindset of the Army that a fairly light weight tank was preferable to a big bruiser based on the idea that tanks shouldn’t fight tanks. When the Sherman made its combat debut, it actually was a pretty good tank, although by Normandy, the title to Belton Cooper’s book, Death Traps pretty much sums it up.
Had the Army originally viewed the Sherman as a stopgap measure, or at least done so after the first hints of its combat deficiecies were made known, they could have changed development priorities so that France could have been invaded with a combination of Pershings and Sherman Easy Eights, rather than the combination of regular Shermans and Stuarts that actually did show up in France.
The original T-34 was a good starting point when it entered combat, but clearly needed revision. It was up gunned twice, going from a semi-useless 75mm to a pretty effective 85mm, and I think they beefed up the armor as well. Had the Soviets not recognized and fixed as best as possible the T-34’s faults, it never would have been the effective tank that it was.
As far the Americans go, even if our tank lineage had started with a Christie design rather than the external bogey design that led to M2/M3/M4 medium series, it seems likely that we still would have been going into combat with under-armored, under-gunned tanks.
Andy
abarne: minor correction, that’s 76.2mm and along with the 85mm it got an additional crew member and a larger turret for them all. anyway the 76 wasn’t actually useless, it just got outdated in the arms race. there were a dozen experimental t34 tank destroyers made with the 57mm but the idea was abandoned due to poor HE shell performance so clearly the 76 had some good points. it couldn’t exactly knock off tigers with the greatest of ease but that wasn’t it’s primary purpose. anyway don’t mind me, blah blah blah…
larry_dunn: i’d say it’s an icon of victory although if it’s an icon of the allied victory in europe depends on what you mean by “allies”. i usually think of the western allies as “allies” and the russians are sort of on their own on the other side.
For some reason I keep thinking of the earlier T34 guns as being 75mm, I can’t explain it.
[%-)]
Interesting, I hadn’t realized that before.
I agree which is why I used the term semi-useless rather than useless to indicate a level of utility below par but better than nothing. I was under the impression, perhaps mistaken impression, that it was the F-34 76.2mm equipped T-34’s that really got the German’s attention more so that the earlier L-11 76.2mm equipped T-34’s. From what I can gather from the gun performance specs quoted in T-34 in action, it looks as though the later F-34 would achieve similar penetration compared to the L-11 at 400-500 meters greater range, so clearly it was a significant step forward.
Really the point of my post was that the T-34 would not have ever achieved the fame and success that it did, had the Soviets not introduced timely enhancements to the design during WWII. Had we bolstered the Sherman wih all of its eventual improvements and given it the support of Pershings, the Sherman design, even with its external suspension bogeys and slab sided armor could have been a lot more successful than it was.
Andy
You know, that’s really not far from the truth of the matter. Two to three years prior to the close of the way, the Russians definitely saw themselves as completely cut off and isolated from the rest of the world. Their struggle was their own. Truthfully you can’t really blame them. In those years they CONSERVATIVELY lost somewhere in the neighbourhood of 20-25 million citizens, military and civilian, and the refusal of the western powers to open a second front to aleviate some of the pressure off Russia definitely did nothing to strengthen bonds.
And before that, they lost about as many citizens in their own murderous Bolshevik purges, which goes a long way to explaining why no one wanted to help them. This charming regime’s losses were so appalling because they had cut the head off of their own military in these horrific purges, and then resorted to callous human wave tactics to beat back the Germans.
Perhaps the fact that they had invaded Finland, and then ganged up with Hitler to jackal the Poles, might have had something to do with this Allied reluctance as well. And after the war, they went on to establish brutal dictatorships in the countries they had (snicker) “liberated.”
The poor, poor Soviets, let me get out the world’s smallest violin, just for them. [;)]
Absolutely true, but this act of “liberation” was a tactic not followed by the Soviets alone. Both nations involved ‘freed’ many countries and put in dictators with some of the worst human-rights abuse records known to history. Anyways, no need to reply to this, as we’ll get drawn into a political discussion that will not lead anywhere.
It is definitly, it is the best tank of the war.
Anyone going to buy one?
I’ve got one!
It’s very nice!
We…are talking about models again, yes? [;)]
Just funnin’ ya’ll…that’s quite an interesting discussion.
Which, true or untrue, is beside the point, because the comment that was made was about the reluctance of the Allies to rush to the aid of the Soviets.
Are you kidding? [(-D]
I plan on buying one as soon as the LHS gets them in [:)].
Regards, Rick
Gonna buy one? Sure, every new 1/48 armor Tamiya is coming out with will see me me get a bit poorer. Its like a disease! But honestly, this is a feast after years of famine for those of us interested in 1/48 armor.
the purges and other stalin paranoid “hijinks” were a tragedy. but there were nowhere near the number of people lost to them as were lost in the war. finland and poland ended up allying themselves with nazi germany and the territories involved were either long-disputed or meant as a protective buffer. you’re not too far off from the truth and entitled to your opinion but if you’re going to be snide and mocking about a war where millions of people died and that most of my family had to suffer through, i’m going to take offense. these are actual people you’re talking about. “liberating” countries isn’t right but i’d say the mass extermination rampage that the nazi’s were on is just a wee bit worse…
Tchah!! Looks like a beautiful kit. And besides, the countries in Eastern Europe all declared war on the Soviets!!! They were perfectly justified in occupying them. Furthermore, the Red Army had 2 of the best commanders in the entire world: Zhukov and Koniev. These two were masters in the art of maneuver warfare.