T-54 & 55 tanks in 1/35

[dov]

Hallo

Which kits from Miniart you would suggest to cover the developement? Also Tiran 4 or 5.

I prefer interior kits.

Just want to show the developement!

Thank you in forward 

Happy modelling 

[Ade H]

"Cover the development"? 😕

[dov]

Yes, to cover the developement!

[Ade H]

Er, I was asking for clarification of what you meant...

Edited August 27, 2021 by Ade H
typo

[John Tapsell]

There are so many different variations of the T-54 and T-55 that you could argue that you need all the Miniart 'interior' kits to cover the development of the type. Most Miniart kits represent a different variant or sub-variant.

 

Do you want to cover just the Soviet/Russian manufactured vehicles or do you want to include those manufactured in Poland, Czechoslovakia and China for example? They all have different production features.

 

Would you build separate examples with and without anti-radiation armour? (again, Russian, Czech and Polish examples with anti radiation armour have different production features)

 

I think their Polish and Czech manufactured examples don't have an interior so you  might have to accept no interiors for them (The Croatian T-55 should be a Czech manufactured vehicle whilst the NVA T-55 should be a Polish example - maybe just different decals?)

 

As an absolute minimum I'd go for a T-54-1, a T-54B, A T-55 Mod 1963 Early and a T-55A Model 1981 - that gives you the earliest and latest version of both types. Add a Polish T-55A, a Czech T-55A, a Chinese Type 59 and maybe the T-44 if you really want completeness of the family line

[dov]

Just the Russians I want!

[Kingsman]

Every Miniart T-54 and T-55 is a distinctly separate variant, so you need them all if you want to plot the development course from T-54-1 to Model 1981.  Obviously not the Polish and Czech variants.  But they don't all come in interior versions so you may need to buy some extra interior versions to sacrifice the interiors for non-interior versions.

 

As for Tirans, Miniart don't do a Tiran 5.  They have said in the past that they might, and new T-55 versions continue to be released - so there is hope.  You would need an appropriate T-55 and add the Legend or Blast Tiran 5 update sets and an M68 gun barrel.  Egypt and Syria received a mixed bag of new and used T-54s and T-55s over time including Czech-built, although the Tiran 5s I've seen all seem to be Russian-built.  Or you could cross-kit the parts from one of the Minart Tiran 4 late kits: the Tiran parts were the same on the 4 and 5.  Tamiya's Tiran 5 is a dog: lots wrong with it, not worth correcting since the Miniart kits appeared.

 

Miniart cover the Tiran 4 very well with all the versions.  The early minimally-converted version.  The initial Sharir with just the M68 gun and the later Sharir with all the bins and bits.  They also do the specific SLA late version which retained the original 100mm D-10TG gun.  The non-interior version of that kit has a much better decal set and comes with both spider and starfish wheels.  The interior version is only appropriate to their short time in IDF markings while the first SLA crews were being trained on them.

[dov]

Thank you Abteilung.

You gave me a great useful answer.

For information: From oral history in Israel and literature there is one significant point, which made Israel win the 1973 war: The russian tanks could not lower there canon so much as Israeli tanks from Britain or US. This was the point at the Golan! At the ramps at the beginning of the valley of tears and the road downhill at Gamla.

Happy modelling 

[Kingsman]

Yes because Russian doctrine did not conceive of tanks firing from hull-down defensive positions on reverse slopes.  Western tank designers knew that their tanks would be forced to adopt defensive positions against the numerically superior Warsaw Pact forces and the effective use of terrain was an integral part of Western armoured doctrine.

 

The T-54/55 turrets did not lend themselves to modification to allow greater depression.  The M51 Sherman suffered the same problem with the D1504 105mm gun and had a hole cut in the roof of the turret and patched over to give a few more degrees of depression.

 

A similar problem exists with more modern Russian tanks with automatic loaders as the gun must return to zero elevation to reload.  In a hull-down position this means the gun pointing skywards for the 8-10 seconds reload cycle time and potentially giving the tank's position away.

[dov]

For my project I got one 54 A & 55 A modern from Miniart. All Russian build with interior.

 

So, the answer is to build ramps!

Much cheaper, as anything else! Oh, fight in mountain terrain prohibited?

 

In many ways, you can find such funny ill-logic items on all systems. If you know ot, it is easy to counter them.

 

Just on modern systems: displays go off at high temperatures. Display will not show you anything in bright light.

 

Happy modelling