2nd Republic...1/48 T-34/85 Austrian Army

Reini78 · November 16, 2018

First 1/48 armour contribution to our homeland collection.

My dad uses the Hobby Boss kit, which comes with full interior. Gonna ignore that, won´t display it open.

Will do an early version with numbers and unit insignias not yet applied.

1956_Sicherung by Reinhard Spreitzhofer, auf Flickr

T34BH-7-04 by Reinhard Spreitzhofer, auf Flickr

DSC_0010 by Reinhard Spreitzhofer, auf Flickr

DSC_0007 by Reinhard Spreitzhofer, auf Flickr

DSC_0008 by Reinhard Spreitzhofer, auf Flickr

DSC_0009 by Reinhard Spreitzhofer, auf Flickr

Corsairfoxfouruncle · November 17, 2018

I never knew the Austrians used the type ? This should be an interesting learning experience.

Reini78 · November 17, 2018

2 hours ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

I never knew the Austrians used the type ? This should be an interesting learning experience.

When the Allied occupation of Austria ended in 1955, the Russians "donated" 27 T-34/85 for the revived Austrian Bundesheer. The tanks saw WW2 combat action and then were stored from 45 to 55. Together with a bunch of US donated M24 they were the backbone of the Austrian tankforce.

In the late 50ies early 60ies they were replaced with M41, 47 and 60.

A few were dug in and used as fixed positions/pill boxes until the year 2000. A few survivors still exist in some army bases and in our military museum for display.

SleeperService · November 17, 2018

I shall follow with interest. Tell your Father to use only a small amount of glue on the tracks, they are very thin and dissolve easily. Nice start to a very interesting build.

I would also advise putting the bulkhead between fighting and engine compartment in place. It will stop the hull distorting later. I only made that mistake once....

Blaubar · November 17, 2018

Hi,

Interesting bit of history there, thanks for sharing this.

Have you been to any of these locations where they dug them in? Never knew that Austria had such makeshift „bunkers“.

/Stef

Reini78 · November 17, 2018

45 minutes ago, SleeperService said:

I shall follow with interest. Tell your Father to use only a small amount of glue on the tracks, they are very thin and dissolve easily. Nice start to a very interesting build.

I would also advise putting the bulkhead between fighting and engine compartment in place. It will stop the hull distorting later. I only made that mistake once....

Thanks for the info. My dad has built a Hobby Boss T-34 some years ago and knows that the tracks are not like Tamiya one...🙂

Reini78 · November 17, 2018

51 minutes ago, Blaubar said:

Hi,

Interesting bit of history there, thanks for sharing this.

Have you been to any of these locations where they dug them in? Never knew that Austria had such makeshift „bunkers“.

/Stef

No, never been in such locations, only saw them on pics.

Besides T-34, there were others too. In the mid 80ies our army bought about 300 Dutch Centurions. Afterwards they realized that a modification/modernization would be too expensive. So the turrets were also used for so called "FAn, Feste Anlagen".

Also turrets from decomissioned M24 and M47, Charioteers and other guns were used for such installations.

here´s the last such T-34 that was dug out in 2007

http://www.bundesheer.at/cms/artikel.php?ID=3655

google for "bundesheer feste anlagen" then you find a lot of pics from our cold war relics