North Korean T34/76 in 1/48 Last of the breed?

[SleeperService]

Greetings Comrade Tank Builders!

Way, way back in time a very few T34/76 tanks were supplied to China and N.Korea by the Peace Loving Peoples of the Soviet Union for training purposes. Incredibly some survived - in use in their intended role! - until the early 21st Century. Here is proof:

 

 

As featured on N Korean TV which enjoys a reputation for unbiased and accurate reporting on a par with the BBC. So it must be true. You can just about make out the guide teeth telling us that it's not T-34 track anymore. I'll be doing a dig later but they were upgraded to T-55 track and drive sprocket at some stage.

So starting with this:

 

and:

 

 

The rest of the T-55 kit won't be wasted as I have a plan. The wheels are from OKB Grigorov and aren't the same as the T-54/55 wheels which is as it should be.

 

So the bench is clear while I await the detail set for my Corsair I may as well crack on.

 

 

[PlaStix]

Looks like a great project in prospect!! Really looking forward to seeing another of these 1/48 Hobbyboss kits in progress!

Kind regards,

Stix

[SleeperService]

3 minutes ago, PlaStix said:

Looks like a great project in prospect!! Really looking forward to seeing another of these 1/48 Hobbyboss kits in progress!

Kind regards,

Stix

I'll be honest upfront I'm skipping most of the interior as it'll never be seen

 

[PlaStix]

2 minutes ago, SleeperService said:

I'll be honest upfront I'm skipping most of the interior as it'll never be seen

 

Don't blame you!! In this scale it's all a bit in there!

[modelling minion]

I don't blame you either, no point wasting time and effort on details that won't be visible.

Another very interesting post war build, this should be a good one!

[badger]

Cool project and one I'll be following with interest.

 

All the best

Ben

[SleeperService]

Greetings Comrades

 

Well Day 1 at Tankograd West showed reasonable results but first

 

 

The after-market goodness I'll be using. The Lion Roar barrel is literally barrel shaped along it's length, OK so it's a tall thin barrel but still. However I happen to have several spares so no worries there. The interloper is the rear grille piece from the HB kit, some of these are excellent; straight, fine mesh, no short shots. This one wasn't one of those. So overthick mesh gone, sides squared off with card to get back to correct width and the large and misshapen tail light opening filled in.

Then I could turn to the rest of the kit

 

 

Having been caught out on another build that may photobomb this thread later I got the bulkhead and lower rear plate glued in early. The lower hull is very finely moulded but flexible so I wanted this set really solid before going any further. The nose to lower tub had a wide gap (obviously inspected by somebody working out their notice, or drunk, or not wearing their glasses), so a strip of 10thou sorted that out. The mudguards are gone to be replaced by the Hauler set which is the later post-rebuild squared off type.

 

 

 

Finally for now here is the rear cover with new grille fitted, a bit of a PITA due to the metal being very thin (great) but also quite springy (not great at all). Usually I'd anneal this but the metal is so thin I doubt I could get it clean and undamaged. Thanks to @PlaStix posting up his superb paint job I then slapped some Humbrol 102 around after the suspension springs had been painted black. A bit of dry brushing makes the detail show and is good practice for stuff that will be more visible on other projects.

I can't praise OKB Grigorov's wheels enough. They got a bad press as some early ones were miscast and even though they were replaced without question the label stuck. I'd already removed and made good the pour blocks and cleaning up the rest was literally 5 minutes with a toothbrush.

Now having diss'd the kit I will praise it. The tracks in early boxings were very thin and the glue to melt gap was tiny, I've been using MEK in a syringe, but these ones are much better. HB have done a lot of rework on several kits but that news has slipped under the radar. I think you'd still need to be sparing with the glue but the kit tracks should be a lot easier to clean up and use. As I'm using the Tamiya T-55 tracks the next job is to deal with the ejector pin marks although these are much reduced compared to others in the range.

 

I hope everybody else is having a great time too.

[SleeperService]

Greetings from an increasingly Dystopian World

The T-34 has been extremely cooperative thus far and is now on her new tracks (temporarily) as here

 

The Tamiya track is easy enough just needing one link less on each side at the front. The drive sprocket caused a slight headache but by very carefully removing the cylindrical 'axle' from the rear face without breaking through the outer face everything lined up pretty closely. Turning to the HB final drives I removed the raised central hub and that was it. I've made a start on the interior painting and various sub-assemblies too. There has been more....

 

 

 

Sitting in the ThreeBoxesofDoom was a T-34T intended to be a Chinese vehicle, a victim of the Great Shelf Collapse I stripped the mudguards and damaged bits and cleaned the mudguards ready for N.Korean service. As the build project will feature an open turret hatch I'll add interior where it will be visible, otherwise my spares box gets a boost.

 

So back to N.Korea: I've been digging around to see what I can discover about the original. THIS PAGE has been useful although I have my doubts about some of it. I'd already found this photo

 

 

 

which the page linked believes to be a museum rebuild and a bit of a mongrel, however I'm not so sure. The T-54/55 lookalike wheels for the T-34 are a very late 60s item when there was plenty of T-34 spares available and Sino-Soviet relations were a little frosty. Which also discredits the claim that the screen grab in my first post was from the 60s. I have found no photos of Chinese T-34-76s with these roadwheels although at least one -85 in Vietnam had them

 

 

Finally we have a TV clip as HERE showing a N.Korean tank and other assets taking part in a film. I believe that the museum vehicle is an actual N.Korean vehicle and a decent guide to the in service vehicle. The Korean Army certainly received T-34-76 tanks from the Soviets and never throws anything away, it would make sense for them to adapt the vehicle to take tracks that were readily available from several sources. My final clincher is the vehicle colour, the Chinese green is rather darker than that exhibit.

 

So now I'm happy to carry on and I'll be doing the ARV alongside it when the same part is on both vehicles at least.

[modelling minion]

Very nice work, your T-34's are coming together very nicely.

Finding information on North Korean and Chinese tanks from this period isn't easy so thanks for sharing what you have found.

[SleeperService]

2 hours ago, modelling minion said:

Very nice work, your T-34's are coming together very nicely.

Finding information on North Korean and Chinese tanks from this period isn't easy so thanks for sharing what you have found.

Thank You for the comment. As BM seems to follow the same share and assist attitude I was brought up with then it's nice to be able to give some back.

 

For anybody reading with a similar shelf-queen then I was advised to build a new model alongside the stalled project, as here, according to the shrinks it makes it a lot easier to climb the hump and get it finished. The upside of having a huge pile of doom is that I have a lot of variety  

[PlaStix]

Hi SleeperService. Good to see you making progress on this project! Looking good!

Kind regards,

Stix

[Sgt.Squarehead]

That's a very cool subject, Nick.....Can't say I'd ever noticed the sprocket being swapped before, but I assume that's down to me not looking properly?