T-90 Russian Main Battle Tank

[Mike]

T-90 Russian Main Battle Tank

1:35 Zvezda

The T-90 is a Main Battle Tank that is a curious blend of politics and financial expediency, as it was developed as a hybrid of the T-72 and T-80 tanks, due to the former being a little inferior and the latter being too expensive, but both plants where they were built being in politically sensitive areas. The T-90 is based on the T-72 chassis, but takes elements of the T-80 fire-control systems to obtain excellent accuracy from the 125mm smooth bore barrel. As well as composite and steel armour, the T-90 also has the Kontakt-5 Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA), and a self-defence suite from developments of the T-80. It is powered by a traditional diesel engine, eschewing the unreliable fuel guzzling gas turbine of the T-80, and through subsequent upgraded has obtained well over 1,000hp from its 12 cylinder block.

It has seen action in the invasion of Dagestan, where it acquitted itself well, and it is generally thought of as the most survivable Russian tank in their current arsenal. It has been exported to India, Turkmenistan and Algeria, with India intending to produce around 1,000 under license.

The kit arrives in a standard looking box with a painting of a camouflaged T-90 on the front, as you would expect. On lifting the lid however, a moment of confusion occurs, as the brown card base has another lid built in. The box-within-a-box contains six sprues of mid-grey styrene, one of clear parts, a length of string, two different styles of mesh, a medium sized decal sheet and the instruction booklet.

The first thing that is noticeable on looking through the sprues is that there is no hull tub or pre-formed turret box. The tops and bottoms of the turret and hull dominate two of the sprues however, and the detail here is nicely done, although a very fine patina can be seen on the more wide open spaces. The parts that aren’t exposed once the model is built still have tooling marks visible, which lends the sprues a sort of “industrial” air.

Unusually, construction begins with the turret, installing the flat panels that make up the basic sides of the turret, with the top built up separately for installation once the crew hatches have been built and the basic interior parts around the lips of the hatches have been added. There is no rendition of the breech and autoloader included, so either closed hatches of or crew figures will be needed unless you plan on replicating all that yourself. The detail in the cupolas and around the inner lip of the commander’s position is quite nice though, and if the aforementioned crew figures can be sourced, it will look quite convincing. The big 125mm gun’s mantlet has a protective bag around it, which is nicely replicated by a three part assembly with a central ring. You’ll have to remove some seamlines, but if that’s done carefully, and the fabric is painted sympathetically, it should look great.

Atop the turret are the Shtora-1 sensor suites, which includes a pair of large infra-red light boxes either side of the main gun, as well as various infra-red detectors that give the T-90 a 360^o sensor sweep. The light-boxes, known as IR-dazzlers have clear front lenses, and on the real thing, once a threat has been identified the main gun will whip round to face the threat, where these two dazzlers will confuse the incoming missile. The front mounted grenade launchers are also included, and these fire aerosol grenades that are opaque to laser designators. A set of nicely detailed turret baskets are also included, again built from slabs rather than pre-formed sections, allowing detail to be engraved on all sides without resorting to the expense of slide-moulding. The front of the turret is finished off with two arrow-shaped arrangements of the Kontakt-5 ERA tiles, as well as a number on the turret roof. More sensors and grenade launchers are installed, leading to a rather busy looking turret, before the commander’s wicked-looking NSV anti-aircraft gun is installed.

The barrel is moulded in two halves, with the insulation jacket moulded integrally. It isn’t a particularly impressive moulding, and seems ripe for a resin or turned metal replacement. Careful alignment and sanding of the seams will result in an acceptable finish though, which will of course have a hollow end! It has a large keyed location tab, which ensures that you get the detail of the insulation bags the right way up. In order to save yourself the task of making the barrel opening perfectly circular, a protective bag is often installed on the last few inches of the barrel, with the excess pushed down into the barrel, giving it a somewhat fluted internal look. A little Magic Sculpt would recreate this well, using some readily available internet photos as reference.

Building the hull starts with the most complete part – the top, and this is where the first of the sheets of mesh come in. They are sandwiched between the large louvers on the rear deck and some radiator panels. A large proportion of the fenders are skinned over with additional parts, and stowage boxes where appropriate, probably in order to avoid slide-moulding some of the detail. The front glacis plate has additional armour plates added across the majority of its surface, and on the rear another pair of grilles use the other style net sheet. The rear bulkhead has the large curved supports for the additional fuel tanks as well as a few spare track links scattered around.

The lower hull is made up of three large parts, with a detailed underside, and the two side panels, with suspension attachment locators. Three return rollers affix to each side, and a fender protecting the final drive mechanism are installed before the main suspension parts are added. Happily, the suspension arms are keyed, so there is no guess work involved with setting the ride height. The wheels are one piece mouldings, with moulded in tyres, so get your toothpicks and a steady hand ready… unless you’re prepared to wait for a masking set, of course. Each wheel station is actually a pair of wheels, and Zvezda would have you install the inner set, then install the tracks, and finally the outer set.

The track is link and length, and has separate guide-horns in matching lengths to the tracks. Again, this is to depict the hollow guide-horns without resorting to slide-moulding. Each run of track has six parts, made up of two flat runs top and bottom, two more short flat runs between idler/drive sprockets and the roadhweels, and a final pair of curved sections that go round the idler/drive sprockets themselves. The track detail is of good quality, but lacks a look of separation between the links, which is evident on the real thing. Clogged with mud however, this won’t notice one bit. It would also be worthwhile investigating the viability of installing the wheels temporarily in pairs and lacing the tracks around them after painting by leaving the band open in one or two locations.

A large unditching beam is included to mount on the rear bulkhead, but whether the wood grain will survive sanding of the seams is moot. It might we as well to obtain a nicely dried straight stick from the garden instead. The towing cables have styrene loop parts, but the cables are made from a silken string, which has no visible “hair”, so should paint up well. In fact, it is a metallic grey in colour already, so if you’re feeling timid, you could possibly get away without painting it at all.

The large sideskirts fit to the side of the upper hull, and have a large mating surface, so should stay in place once installed. Additional hinge/attachment detail is added after wards, and three ERA panels are hooked onto mounting cradles to the forward end of the skirts, giving added protection to the crew, and driver in particular. The large drum-like auxiliary fuel tanks mount on their brackets at the rear, and have styrene hoses depicted, as well as a link hose between the two tanks. The tanks are built from two halves with separate tops, and here the seams will require some work, as the surface is heavily stepped with strengthening bands. Flooding the joint with liquid glue and squeezing a bead of liquefied styrene will probably be the best chance of getting a good joint without unnecessary work.

The decal sheet is simple, and consists almost entirely of individual white serial numbers, with two red and yellow badges. Clearly, the days of Russian tanks adorned with patriotic slogans have long since departed. The decals are simple, but the white digits seem to have a slight yellow caste to them, while the yellow and red star badge is a little indistinct.

Two colour schemes are shown on the back page of the instructions, one with an overall dark green finish, the other with a tri-colour green/black/tan. Testors ModelMaster paint call-outs are given on the box outer, together with Zvezda colour numbers, which are given as the call-outs on the instructions. Here is where it gets tricky – the tan colour (11) isn’t included in the chart, so you’ll have to take a guess. Try as I might, I’ve not been able to find a link to either Zvezda’s own paint range, or some conversion chart that has, for example a black numbered 20.

It's not called the Flying Tank for nothing!

Conclusion

At last a mainstream model of the current Russian MBT, and although it’s difficult to judge its accuracy from an in-box review, the built up pictures on the side of the box (unpainted) compare well, and I understand that the Russian model forums aren’t tearing it to pieces, which has to be a good thing. It is well detailed, and the construction process has been streamlined, making what is an incredibly busy model appear quite straight forward. Clearly, it would have benefited from Photo-Etch, or a turned barrel, but as it is “priced to sell”, it does represent very good value. Zvezda do a nice figure set to complement this kit, numbered 3615 and named “Russian Tank Crew”.

Click the picture above to buy these crew figures

Apart from the slightly jaundiced decals and the confusion over the colour scheme paint call-outs, it represents good value and should build up quite easily. There is nothing to challenge even the novice modeller, other than the three tone camouflaged colour scheme, and there is plenty of online reference out there. If you’re modelling your T-90 with active IR Dazzlers, the lenses are an incandescent fire bar pink in action, with a dark centre. Again, pictures are readily available on the net.

Recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

[Paul A H]

I'm trying not to buy any more 1:35 scale kits, but I've seen this one in my local model shop and it's very tempting!

[Panzer Vor!!!]

I'm trying not to buy any more 1:35 scale kits, but I've seen this one in my local model shop and it's very tempting! i know that feeling

ive too many need to get some built but it crys out buy me

[Malcolm Shaw]

I`ve been watching a couple of builds of this kit and it has gone on my `to get` list.