T-90 MBT***FINISHED***

[PeterB]

This may turn out to be a fairly straightforward build after all, but as I mentioned in the chat section I have had bad experiences with the two previous kits I have tried from this manufacturer.

 I recently managed to build their BMP-2 in a GB but it was not easy - poor engineering meant quite a bit of surgery was needed, there was a fair bit of flash, poorly placed sprue attachment points and pretty poor instructions. A year or so I ago tried their T-59 tank and ended up abandoning it as not only did it have the same problems but the white plastic they used just would not take any sort of glue including CA. This does look a bit better moulding wise, but a combination of link and length track and explosive reactive armour tiles makes for a lot of small parts and combined with rather pathetic instructions still makes me feel downright uncomfortable, so as I am already building 2 tanks for other GB I thought I would throw it into the mix.

 

Pete

[AdrianMF]

Build #3! You do like your discomforts...

 

It looks like a fiddly kit and I'm looking forward to seeing how you get from the turret on the sprues to the turret on the boxart.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[PeterB]

Just now, AdrianMF said:

Build #3! You do like your discomforts...

 

It looks like a fiddly kit and I'm looking forward to seeing how you get from the turret on the sprues to the turret on the boxart.

 

Regards,

Adrian

Hi Adrian,

 

That is indeed one of the things I am worried about - the instructions say I should position the tiles in accordance with the illustration below

But when you consider the whole sheet is only A5 size I doubt it will be a lot of help!

 

Pete

[PeterB]

Ace are a Ukranian company and have been around since the mid to late 1990's. They started off with relatively crude short run injection kits, but perhaps like the Special Hobby family of companies in Czechoslovakia they have now become a little more polished (hopefully)! Unsurprisingly they try and get as much out of their moulds as possible by producing families of related kits, so when they released a T-55 in I think 2002 they followed this up with a T-54, T-59 and a few other vehicles and no doubt used as many common sprues as they could. Unfortunately there are limits to how well that works and as you will see from the following pic it can cause problems.

This is from the instructions for the T-59 and  clearly you are expected to carry out major surgery on the running gear as that Chinese built copy of the T-54/55 has a number of differences and given the problems I had getting the parts to stick together anyway, moving the wheels/axles etc would only weaken the joints further! You also have to make your own towing cable from 'spined wire' as they call it, and brush guards from copper wire, assuming you bother. The T-90 is not as bad but some surgery is still required and again you have to make your own cable and brush guards. The cable is actually quite easy as Millicast have a "how to" article on their website and I made a batch a few years back.

The changes to the smoke dischargers and turret hatch are minor, but the front of the "mudguards" have to be cut off and replaced, and the "V" shaped raised section on the bow plate which I guess kept water away from the driver's hatch when wading also has to be scraped away. On the plus side the instructions do provide some help with the reactive bricks/tiles on the turret and a little bit of help with the track construction but are still rather minimal!

 

I thought a bit of background on the genesis of the T-90 might interest one or two viewers -

The post war development of Soviet/Russian tanks is at times a little confusing, at least to me. Unlike in the West where different private companies tender designs for consideration, all the Russian armament concerns were until recently effectively state owned, and as with aircraft, missiles and guns they used a system of “design bureaux” . The names “Mig, Sukhoi, Tupolev” etc are pretty well known over here for their aircraft, but those of the tank bureaux are perhaps not. The two main ones during WWII were those of Kotin which was responsible for the KV/IS series and Morozov who took over from Koshkin when he died and was responsible for the T-34. In the same way the US developed the late war T-26 into the post war M26, M46, M47, M48 and M60 by gradual changes to the hull, turret, gun, engine etc, the Morozov Bureau developed the T-34 into the late war T-44 and then the T-54  but mass production involved using several other factories besides their own and these in turn suggested improvements and began to form their own design teams. Incidentally, the Soviet system meant that competitive designs were tested under the designation “Obiekt” or “Object” number such and such, and only allocated an “official designation” once approved, so for example Obiekt 136 eventually became the T-44 and Obiekt 137 with a bigger gun and new turret became the T-54. So far so good but at this point it started getting complicated. During the war the Morozov Bureau moved from Kharkov in Ukraine to Nizhni Tagil in the Urals where the Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) factory became one of the main Soviet tank factories as it was 'out of reach of German bombers, but in the early 1950's it went back to Kharkov, and a new bureau was set up at Nizhni Tagil under Kartsev and they began increasingly to compete with Morozov who left the upgraded T-54A and T-55 to them whilst he concentrated on a "totally new" design which would eventually become the T-64. Throw in political interference and other outside influences such as the "my gun is bigger than yours" syndrome and the scene was set for a somewhat messy situation, which I will only briefly outline as it does have a bearing on the development of the T-90.

 

More later

 

Pete

 

 

Edited May 29, 2023 by PeterB

[81-er]

That looks like it's going to be a challenging build, Pete, good luck with it!

 

James

[AdrianMF]

Thanks, as ever, for explaining the history behind the kit and the real thing. 
 

15 hours ago, 81-er said:

challenging build

Indeed! You are in the right place

 

Regards,

Adrian

[PeterB]

I have managed to get the sides on the lower hull.

The plastic was thick with a fair bit of flash and the fit was not brilliant so it took some trimming/filing to get them on, but at least they were engineered correctly, unlike the BMP where I had to carry out surgery to get them to fit. The fit to the upper hull is not too bad. Speaking of which I have carried out the work needed by removing the fronts of the mudguards and the "V" thingy.

The replacement mudguards are not a particularly good fit and needed reshaping, and will no doubt need a fair bit of filler, but I probably can't  put them on until the hull is assembled as I need to align them with the side skirts by the look of it.- they are wider than the original ones.

 

So, to continue the heavily compressed background based on the various Osprey books by Zaloga and others, tank development has always been a bit of compromise between armour protection, firepower and mobility, and based on what I have read, in the late 1950's the Soviets as I will call them were looking at their tank guns. The standard rifled 100mm gun in use then was no longer adequate against modern Western tank armour, though this was largely to do with the ammunition so they began to develop a fin stabilised discarding sabot type round which would seriously improve the muzzle velocity. However, the then Soviet premier Kruschev had a thing about missiles so they also began to look at a smoothbore gun that could use those as well. As it turned out missile development was not sufficiently advanced but a 115mm smoothbore gun was developed anyway and when the US M-60 with the British L7 105mm gun appeared General V.I. Chuikov, commander of Soviet Ground Forces, insisted that the next Soviet tank had to have a bigger gun than those on NATO tanks. He was unimpressed when told that the new ammunition made the 100mm far better, and when told that there were problems designing a stabiliser for the 115mm gun is reported to have said (according to Zaloga) 'Why are you jerking me around over this stabiliser? I don't care if it is mounted on a pig! Just come up with this gun.'

 

As the T-64 was taking much longer to develop than expected, the Uralvagon team mounted the gun on what was essentially a stretched T-55 as the T-62 and this “stop gap” remained in production for 10 years or so. When the T-64 did finally appear it suffered from a number of problems, particularly with the engine and transmission and was rather expensive, and before long the UVZ team were told to come up with a cheaper and more reliable alternative. By this time the Brits had introduced the Chieftain with a 120mm gun so the “my gun is bigger than yours” syndrome meant that the resulting T-72 had a 125mm gun though in fairness a more powerful was needed anyway as Western tanks were being fitted with better armour.. The T-72 went on to be the most produced Soviet post-war tank and is still in service, and has almost outlived its proposed replacement the T-80, which like the T-64 was a product of the Morozov Bureau and was also both expensive to build and at least initially unreliable, in part due to the gas turbine engine which guzzled fuel and needed servicing far too often. Neither the T-64 nor the T-80 were produced on anything like the scale of the T-72 and although the T-80 is still in service alongside the T-72, both have had to undergo many improvements to keep up with the later Western tanks, not only to protection but also to equipment such as rangefinders, night vision equipment and the like. The T-90 is really an improved T-72 known initially as the T-72BU but was renamed apparently after the poor performance of the T-72 in places like Chechnya got it a bad name in Russia. This Ace T-90 is I think one of a batch of T-72 variants they produced in 2004/5 which probably explains some if not all of the modifications I will have to make.

 

A bit more on the T-90 itself later.

 

Pete

Edited May 30, 2023 by PeterB

[Mr T]

Thank you for the history lesson, most informative. I now know why most Russian tanks look so similar. Looks a bit of a challenge compared to my Vespid Comet. Very topical as well. 

[PeterB]

21 hours ago, Mr T said:

Thank you for the history lesson, most informative. I now know why most Russian tanks look so similar. Looks a bit of a challenge compared to my Vespid Comet. Very topical as well. 

Thanks Mr T.

 

The Soviet designers have tended to go for a low profile and after the T-44 they adopted the "dome" shaped turret first introduced on the IS-3 for better deflection of incoming rounds, so they do tend to all look quite similar externally. This meant that the interior of the turret was cramped for a "normal" 3 man crew of commander, gunner and loader so they opted for an auto loader quite early on. though this has brought with it a variety of problems it seems. In the new T-14 Armata they appear to have gone even further with the automation and fitted it with an unmanned turret, though how many have actually been produced is uncertain.

 

Assuming ACE are still in business in the Ukraine, they may be in a better position now to produce an updated kit given that several T-90 have reputedly been captured.

 

Pete

[Mr T]

Thanks Pete. At least one T90 has recently arrived at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in the US, it was apparently shipped from Poland. I have read somewhere that there about 100 T14s. They have been plagued with reliability and other issues, and production may be affected by  a lack of suitable electronics. 

[PeterB]

3 hours ago, Mr T said:

Thanks Pete. At least one T90 has recently arrived at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in the US, it was apparently shipped from Poland. I have read somewhere that there about 100 T14s. They have been plagued with reliability and other issues, and production may be affected by  a lack of suitable electronics. 

Yes, I have heard that too. Production of the T-14 has certainly been seriously delayed, and they have a lot of electronics these days, particularly for the advanced anti missile/shell countermeasures systems with radar, lasers etc. They were beginning to develop home produced replacements for the imported electronics I believe but the sanctions have probably caused a good few problems and given the reported heavy losses in tanks I suspect they are concentrating on building the simpler T-80 and T-90. Having the Ukrainians displaying wrecked/captured examples of the latest Russian "super tank" on TV would not be good publicity for Mr Putin I guess though it is said a small number have been deployed.

 

Pete

Edited June 6, 2023 by PeterB

[PeterB]

As I half expected from previous experience with this manufacturer problems are starting to arise. The road wheels are a bit of a mixed bag and in some cases the front and back ones are not concentric due to sloppy moulding I guess.  Anyway I managed to get them on fairly well. I am using a base coat of what MiG calls "Yellow Grey" ie. very light stone for the 3 colour Russian camo of stone, green and black/dark grey.

I then fitted the skirts and front mudguards - mostly by guesswork as the instructions barely mention them. The upper and lower hulls actually fit together pretty well but it seems to me that there is very little clearance between the top of the sprocket and the casing and even less between the top of the idler and casing so I suspect some surgery will be required to get the rather thick track links in - that or some slight of hand like leaving off the appropriate bits - time will tell! I suspect the skirts were rubber like on the T-80 originally.

 

I foresee a lot of bad language and CA stuck fingers coming up

 

Pete

 

Later. I was right - this is going to be a pain. Not only do the track lengths/links not interlock without a lot of tedious filing, but either the destructions are totally wrong or else the wrong track sprue was put in the box. The only good thing is that there seems to be far more track links than are needed so I should be able to bodge something together but it is rather irritating!

Edited June 7, 2023 by PeterB

[81-er]

Sounds like you're having a bit of a nightmare there, Pete, good luck with it!

 

I've also got a track problem on a short run kit, a PST Pz Kpfw 754r. Links that don't like to go together like yours, plus some interesting clean up as the gates engulfed part of the link edges (and some links just snapped trying to get them out). The icing on the cake is the sprockets, which have teeth at different spacings front & back so the links don't fit. I'm very glad I bought a 3D printer last month now, new sprockets are being designed

 

James

[AdrianMF]

15 hours ago, PeterB said:

but it is rather irritating

Well, you signed up to be uncomfortable...  It does seem a bit of a nightmare for a modern manufacture kit though.

 

58 minutes ago, 81-er said:

I'm very glad I bought a 3D printer last month now, new sprockets are being designed

When I had similar problems with Airfix tracks and sprockets in the 1970s I used to say "I'm very glad I bought a Stanley knife to sort out the sprocket teeth spacing issue"

 

Regards,

Adrian

[PeterB]

Were it not for the cost, I would seriously consider buying replacement resin tracks from OKB Grigarov, but at 15 Euros plus postage from I think Bulgaria the kit is frankly not worth the outlay. As I have removed half the teeth from the sprockets anyway they at least are not likely to be a problem. I have also filed down the top of the idlers to get a bit more clearance so I will have to see how it goes. As I have said many times before I am somewhat stubborn (my wife says pig-headed) so I don't give up that easily - it may not be pretty but it should still get done if at all possible. Incidentally, I note according to the Scalemates site, Ace did offer etched replacement tracks for their T-72 family of kits at one time - pity they did not instead make the effort to sort out the plastic ones!

 

Pete

[81-er]

Maybe that's the reason they didn't, they wanted you all to shell out for the etched tracks

 

James

[PeterB]

I have not done many kits with link and length track but when I do I always debate whether to paint the track on the sprue as that is the easiest way but might make joining it up difficult, or to leave it unpainted until after assembly even though it will then be a PITA to paint. I think that having painted it first may at least account for some of the problems. Anyway I made a start.

and eventually got it together.

It was a real fiddle and required a fair bit of delicate surgery heavy duty hacking at the track and bodywork to get it to go together and as I said before it is not pretty as the running gear alignment was not as good as I thought. Anyway it is done and I have stuck some more bits on the upper hull - the exhaust, driver's hatch and what seems to be add on armour to protect the driving compartment. I still have 4 short lengths of track on the sprue together 27 individual links, only a handful of which are supposed to be glued on the hull as "spares" so you can see what I meant when I said I wondered if it was the wrong track sprue for this kit - there are enough bits for a tank at least a 3 cm longer .

 

Hopefully that is the biggest problem area dealt with and now all I have to do in theory is work out where all the other ruddy bits go. Given how vague the kit instructions are I think I will download some from other manufacturers such as Revell and Zvezda,

 

Pete

Edited June 8, 2023 by PeterB

[81-er]

That one sounds like quite a fight, Pete, but you've bested it

 

James

[PeterB]

I have glued the upper and lower parts of the turret together - terrible fit requiring surgery and removal of industrial amounts of flash - probably took a bit too much off in truth but it was the only way to make it fit and I can patch it up with filler. And now here is the first part of the answer to a question Adrian asked earlier about the turret shape - over time increasing amounts of spaced armour were added to the turret of the T-72 starting with the T-72A which had pronounced bulges at the front sides, earning it the nickname "Dolly Parton" in the West. Although this was officially frowned on for obvious reasons, when the T-72B appeared with even bigger bulges it became the "Super Dolly Parton". I have stuck the bulges on the T-90 and here it is.

There will be 3 stowage bins at the rear together with ERA (Explosive Reactive Armour) tiles in various positions, all of which modify the basic dome shape.

 

Pete

[AdrianMF]

Thanks Peter. Gosh - classic design creep/stretch going on there. Reminds me of some software projects I've worked on

 

Regards,

Adrian

[81-er]

That's, ahem, certainly enhanced it's natural curves somewhat

 

James

[PeterB]

The plastic of this kit is thick, soft, and riddled with flash on the smaller parts which means that they need a lot of cleaning up and even then the fit is poor - on the plus side it takes normal Contacta glue well, unlike their T-59! I assembled and fitted the stowage bins though they are going to need a fair bit of filler. Then I made a start on the wedge shaped supports? for the ERA bricks - ACE only provide 2 bricks for the 8 supports if that's what they are - maybe they are actually a first set of bricks and the others are an extra layer. I have also fitted the "dazzlers" for the Shtora anti missile system. Wiki has this to say -

The Shtora-1 has four key components: two electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) "dazzlers" mounted on both turret cheeks, an infrared jammer, a modulator, and a control panel in the fighting compartment.

Banks of forward firing grenade launchers on each side of the turret that lay an aerosol smoke screen opaque to IR light.

A laser warning system consisting of four angle sensors with two higher precision sensors covering the frontal 90° arc and two lower precision sensors covering the sides and rear.

A control system comprising control panel, microprocessor, and manual screen-laying panel. This processes the information from the sensors and activates the aerosol screen-laying system.

Two IR lights, one on each side of the main gun, continuously emit coded pulsed-IR jamming when an incoming ATGM has been detected.

Shtora-1 has twelve smoke grenade launchers and weighs 400 kg. It can lay a 15 meter high and 20 meter wide smoke screen in three seconds that lasts about twenty seconds at ranges from 50 to 70 meters. The Shtora-1 can also automatically slew the main gun towards a detected threat, so that the tank crew can return fire and so that the stronger frontal turret armour is facing it.

Shtora-1 can operate in fully automatic or semi-automatic modes, continuously for six hours against ATGM attack.'

 

Although much less "massive" than the turrets on modern Western MBT, the T-90 turret is far more "cluttered" than those of the earlier Soviet/Russian tanks. Still plenty more bits to go on if I can work out where they actually go! Incidentally, looking at the above pic I realised that the stowage box on the left side of the turret was upside down so I have since fixed it!

 

Pete

Edited June 9, 2023 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Well that was a fun two or three hours. In between cleaning up and gluing the 12 individual smoke mortar barrels at something resembling the correct angles on their mounting plates, I added the turret hatch covers, the gunners sight, what I believe are the sensors for the Shtora system, two searchlights and a mast that may be a snorkel but is more likely be a sensor to monitor the outside air for signs of radiation etc. I also added the tubular case at the back of the turret which I believe is for the rods used in the gun cleaning kit. I also did a bit of “bricklaying” - the armour on the top of turrets is traditionally rather thin and some modern Anti-Tank weapons are designed to take advantage of this by attacking from vertically above, so the Russians scattered some ERA blocks about. Once the mortar assemblies were dry I added them and the gun barrel – I drilled out the latter but decided I would be pushing my luck if I tried to do the same with the mortars.

So the turret is now complete except for the commander's machine gun and the radio aerial. Back in WWII the tops of turrets were generally kept pretty clear as there was a risk of anything sticking up being shot off, but nowadays all sorts of things project from them – sights, sensors, IR searchlights etc. I have now read that the "dazzlers" for the Shtora system were only fitted to earlier T-90 models and that the latest ones do not have them, so presumably they were not found to be effective against the most recent generation of Western Anti-Tank missiles.

 

Nearly there!

 

Pete

 

Edited June 10, 2023 by PeterB

[AdrianMF]

Wowza! There's probably more explosive in the reactive armour than there is in the ammo racks inside...

 

Regards,

Adrian

[81-er]

Blimey, that's one hell of a busy turret! Worth the effort though, Pete

 

James