The T-34/76 m.1941 by Unimodels 1:72

[KRK4m]

For the schoolboy born in Poland 12 years after the VE day the terms "tank" and "T-34" were synonymous. Mind that today the 1990-91 Gulf War seems just few years ago - five, maybe eight, but surely not 30. In my country in the 1960s the T-34 was omnipresent - dozens of them were standing on the pedestals commemorating the Nazi defeat. The 3-volume novel Czterej pancerni i pies (Four tankmen and a dog) by col. Janusz Przymanowski, set in 1944-45, follows the adventures of a tank crew and their T-34 tank in the 1st Polish Army. The book (compulsory reading at school) and 21-episode TV series have achieved and retain a cult series status in Poland. Thus - although many pictures of the T-55s and PT-76s were present in the newspapers and TV - the T-34 was THE tank everybody knew.

Frankly speaking I have planned the 2021 to be my "Russian AFV year", but the T-34 STGB temptation proved too strong. Therefore I decided to build the UM #329 kit this year.

There are 196 styrene parts on 5 sprues, 22 rubber items and a small fret of 3 photoetched details in the box. The prototype was the most numerous tank of the WW2 – according to the Russian sources some 35.300 (plus 30.600 of the later T-34-85s) were built. Powered by the 500 HP Kharkiv (nee Hispano Suiza) V12 diesel engine the early variant armed with the 76mm gun weighed roughly 28 tons.

 

 

According to the tanks-encyclopedia.com this 1941-built T-34/76 nicknamed Dzerzhinets (after the Iron Felix) belonged to the unknown unit operating on the Central front (Orel/Kursk area) in April 1943.

 

 

It sports the rare camouflage scheme of the standard 4BO Protective Green overall with several large spots of the 7K Yellow Ochre added in the field.

 

 

 

The paints are (as always) Humbrol enamels: 226 for the 1941-43 period  4BO and 83 for the 7K - painted with brushes. Afterwards the Vallejo acrylic matt varnish was brush-applied overall.

 

 

The model was made OOB except for drilling the cannon muzzle and exhaust stubs and adding the antenna wire. The decals are from the Trumpeter #07231 KV-1 tank kit.

 

 

The pictures are made by LG smartphone. You can also find some more pictures here :

 

Comments welcome

Cheers

Michael

Edited September 1, 2020 by KRK4m
One picture added

[RET]

Lovely build and great back story. It brings to mind why the craft of scale modelling is important - to bring back all those memories and history!

Well done.

 

Ret

[echen]

Great build.

What are the tracks made of? Are they wrap around like the Zvezda ones, or link-and-length?

T34s weren't the only Polish armour, mores the pity. My Father-in-law drove Diamond T tank transporters in Italy. He took Polish Shermans up to Casino. The procedure was for the tanks to be winched aboard but the Polish crews couldn't wait. Once the ramps were down the drove onto the trailers. An urgent score to settle?....................

Edited September 1, 2020 by echen

[KRK4m]

8 hours ago, echen said:

What are the tracks made of? Are they wrap around like the Zvezda ones, or link-and-length?

Link-and-lenght, like in every UM AFV I met. There are 44 parts of the tracks within the box. You can see some kind of WIP thread here:

8 hours ago, echen said:

T34s weren't the only Polish armour, mores the pity.

Pity? Why? Perhaps I didn't catch you 😕 Actually in May 1945 there were only 220 Polish tanks and SPGs fighting alongside the Soviets, 140 of them being T-34 and T-34-85. On the other hand the Polish armoured units in NW Europe (i.e. Germany and Benelux) posessed almost 700 Shermans and Cromwells, while another 400+ (mostly Shermans and Stuarts) were used by the Polish units in the MTO (Italy and the Middle East).  

8 hours ago, echen said:

 The procedure was for the tanks to be winched aboard but the Polish crews couldn't wait. Once the ramps were down the drove onto the trailers. An urgent score to settle?

Perhaps so. Mind that their families were left in Poland under the German occupation. And the Polish citizens were murdered at the unimaginable rate of 900.000 a year or 2500 people a day - the British were losing 200 people a day and the Dutch less than 100. A month shorter war meant 80.000 Poles saved from death.

Cheers

Michael

Edited September 1, 2020 by KRK4m
a misprint found

[echen]

Hi Michael.

I have immense respect for the Polish gentlemen who served in all the armies seeking to rid the world of the nazi evil. My comment about the Polish T34 tanks is that it was a pity they couldnt have all had T34 tanks as  I think T34 tanks were better than the british and american vehicles they were given in the west. At least the T34/85 could take on the heavier enemy tanks with a better chance of knocking them out.

I have read at great length about the Polish peoples sufferings at the hands of the nazis. I am sure what I have read barely scratches the surface. I am sure those Polish tankers at Casino were very justified in their hurry to get the war won and get home.

 

[KRK4m]

10 minutes ago, echen said:

 I think T34 tanks were better than the British and American vehicles they were given in the west. At least the T34/85 could take on the heavier enemy tanks with a better chance of knocking them out.

Yeah... On the paper it seems that they were better, like the Valentine was considered better than Matilda and Crusader better than Stuart. But their operational efficiency was quite the opposite.

The T-34 had the powerful gun, sloped armour, mighty Diesel engine and wide tracks - only the PzKpfw V Panther looked better. But on the other hand the crew accomodation and build quality were extremely poor. The Soviet propaganda called the T-34 "the tank that won the war" or even "the best tank of the WW2", but in reality it was the vast numbers that counted. 

Some urban legend says that in winter 1940/41 the group of Soviet tank designers asked Stalin whether should they improve the design in terms of quality or make it even more "coarse" to facilitate cheaper and faster manufacturing. Stalin answered "for me the quantity itself is THE quality".

Cheers

Michael

[echen]

Sadly they needed lots of Shermans too. Post-war a Tiger commander was interviewed. He said a Tiger was worth 10 Shermans - but you always had eleven....................

Particularly sad when one thinks they could have had 90mm gun Pershings instead.

[Graham Boak]

I've seen that said, not sure whether anybody ever counted coup.  Remember when wishing that there would not have been ten Pershings for every ten Shermans, and the Pershing suffered from the same problems as the Tiger, brought on by its size and the available roads, bridges, etc.   More reasonably, the US Army could have had more 76mm gun Shermans of even Fireflies.

 

As for the T-34 vs Tiger, don't forget the JS series of "animal killers".

 

Plus, even in 1944, there were more Mk.IVs in German tank units than anything else.  To the PBI, every German tank was either a Tiger or a Panther, but it wasn't so.

[Homer]

Excellent work 👏 

[Roman Schilhart]

Nice result, Unimodel kits are not easy to build.