Academy Russian T-34/85 Berlin 1945 Number 183 Factory 1:35

[Mike]

Russian T-34/85 Berlin 1945 Number 183 Factory
1:35 Academy

The T-34 was Stalin's mainstay medium tank that was produced in incredible volume by extremely crude methods, and thrown into the fray against the numerically inferior German tanks on the Eastern Front. The designers combined a number of important advances in design such as sloped frontal armour, wide tracks to spread the load, and the ability to cope with the harsh Russian winters without grinding to a halt, which was a problem that affected the Germans badly after the successes in the summer of Operation Barbarossa. The part count and cost of the tank was continuously reduced during production, with plants turning out up to 1,300 per month at the height of WWII. The initial welded turret was replaced by a cast turret with more room, and the 76mm gun was replaced by a more powerful 85mm main gun, giving even the Tiger pause for thought.

The 1945 model /85 had a number of upgrades over previous editions, with electrically powered turret traverse, smoke canister system, and squared off fenders. Crews often added in-the-field modifications such as the famous bed-spring armour, where they burned mattresses and attached the remaining metal springs to the armour to pre-detonate the German Panzerfaust, thereby weakening the effect of the weapon's shaped charge. Bed frames were also used, as they had a heavy-gauge mesh that usually supported the mattress on top.

The Kit
This edition of the kit has been launched as a special edition that includes bed-frame armour, and features specific to Factory 183 (UTZ) facility at Nizhniy Tagil, where it was made. It isn't an amazingly high-tech tooling with all the bells and whistles, but it is a solid kit of the T-34/85 and doesn't indulge in over-complication of parts in order to add extra miniscule detail. It arrives in a pleasantly simple box with a side-view of the subject, and an overall white theme that seems to be their new look for armour kits. Inside are sixteen sprues in Academy's familiar green/grey styrene, two more sprues in black styrene, a sheet of Photo-Etch (PE) brass for the bed-frame armour, a small decal sheet, instruction booklet, and lastly the painting guide with sprue diagrams on the rear. As usual with many armour kits, you'll have a number of parts left on the sprues after construction, as some of the sprues are multi-purpose.

The build isn't complex, as already mentioned, and begins with the construction of the lower hull from a floor panel and sponson sides with overhangs. To these are added the suspension arms in their shafts, and you'll need to take care to ensure the enclosures are sloped in the correct directions. A central bulkhead adds a little strength to the assembly, as does the rear bulkhead, after which the suspension swing-arms are added to their mounting holes. The wheels are made up in pairs with separate hub-caps, and have rubber road tyres moulded in. Some later T-34s were fitted with sprung road-wheels to save strategically important rubber stocks, but having seen some pictures of the decal options provided with the kit, these plain hubs with large bolted rims would seem to be correct. The drive sprockets and idler wheels build up in the same way, and all are added to the stub axles ready to accept the tracks.

The tracks provided in the kit are link and length, with the long top and bottom runs moulded as one part, while the sections wrapping around the ends of the run are individual links, giving a realistic look without the work involved in preparing and adding a whole run of individual links. The top run has the characteristic sag moulded in, so all you have to do is put them together and paint them sympathetically.

The upper hull is built up next, with the usual light clusters, towing eyes and pioneer tools scattered around the surface. The engine deck is completed with a hatch, two louvers and radiator box, which has a PE grille added, with PE stiffeners around the edges, and across the shortest distance. The rear bulkhead has an insert that has the exhausts and their armoured covers, plus a circular access panel added, after which the rear mud-flaps can be installed. At the front the bow machine-gun is added in its own armoured cover, and a length of spare track-links are added in the centre of the glacis plate. At the front the driver's hatch can be posed open or closed, although I don't see much point in the opened option unless you can find a suitably large driver figure to obscure the fact that there's no interior. The join between the upper and lower glacis is finished off by adding a triangular section beam long the front.

Now for the turret, which always seems like the fun bit to me, but maybe I'm just easily pleased? The turret comes in two halves, split around its widest part horizontally. There is a deeply contoured casting texture moulded in that looks a little fierce on first inspection. These turrets were incredibly rough-cast however, and under paint it should look about right, but if you wanted to rough it up a little more and vary the depth, you could attack it with a stiff brush and some Mr Surfacer. Check your references and our Walk Around section if you need some additional pointers. You'll need to do a little work to hide the join anyway, but sometimes there were heavy lines around this area anyway, so see your references again. The commander's cupola is raised and has a number of vision blocks around its sides, with a two-part clamshell hatch that is atypical of the variant. It is however correct according to photographic evidence. The mantlet is set on a pivoting block, with a pair of cheek inserts added to hold it all together. The gun is a single part with a slide-moulded hollow muzzle, and slots into the mantlet from the front, while the cupola drops onto the top. A number of grab handles, lifting lugs, mushroom vents and the simple gunner's hatch are also added, completing the turret assembly, which locks into the hull via a bayonet fitting on the turret ring.

At this point you'll have to decide how best to proceed regarding the bed-frame armour, as installing it now will make painting and decaling much harder. Personally, I'd build up the frames and their supports and paint them separately, adding them after main painting and decaling has been completed. The turret receives six panels, which have folded angle-iron sides, while the hull has an asymmetrical set, with the starboard side fully protected with four frames, and the port side protected only along the rear half by two frames, which is as it should be according to photographic evidence. The vulnerable engine deck also has a frame attached over its air intake grilles, and all have stand-off brackets attached to the ends and sometimes the middle frames. The front fenders are the last styrene parts to be installed, although these are probably best done before painting.


Markings
Two decal options have been included in the box, and there are a number of pictures available online that will assist you with verifying the details of your build. Both have the same white identification bands around their turrets and an overall green scheme. From the box you can build one of the following:

• 11th Tank Corps. K235. Berlin, May 1945.
• 11th Tank Corps. K238. Berlin, May 1945.
  

The decals are all white, but with red identification numbers that makes finding each one that bit easier. They are printed in Korea, And have good sharpness and colour density, but as they are one colour there should be no need for registration concerns. However, the white has been double-printed with a small offset, as can be seen under magnification when looking at the kit data at the bottom of the sheet. This could well mean that there is a little ghosting of the numerals when applied to the dark green model, so be aware, and touch-in with white paint if necessary. These numbers were roughly hand-painted, so a few wobbles here and there shouldn't matter.


Conclusion
There are plenty of T-34 kits out there, and while this couldn't be described as an Überkit, it is certainly of good quality, and keeps the detail, whilst retaining simplicity for ease of building. The only parts that might tax your skills are the bed frames, but as long as you have a reliable straight-edge and some patience, it shouldn't be too tricky. Even if your bends aren't perfect, it won't matter at all, as these frames had to content with tank-riding soldiers all the time, so must have got pretty badly beaten up over time.

Highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of
UK Distributors for

[Sgt.Squarehead]

The 'Bed-Spring Armour' is a nice touch, but Ye Gods, what were they thinking with that turret texture.....It looks like peanut-pattern zimmerit!

[Mike]

Once it's got a couple of coats of paint over it, I think it'll actually look ok. Have you seen how lashed up and rough some of the turrets on surviving T-34s (and some other Soviet WWII turret) were? You'd skin your knee on 'em!

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Still looks more like mad Artex work than casting texturte to me, but I'm sure some 60 grit would sort it right out!

TBH I wish manufacturers would concentrate a bit more on stuff we actually want, such as crew figures, stowage and interior detail and a bit less on gimmicky textures that can be better applied by the modeller, (even zimmerit).