ASHORT GUIDE TO 1/72 T-34-85 TURRETS

INMODELING...

…or,All You Wanted To Know About T-34-85 Turrets But Didn’t KnowTo Ask?

by StephenBrezinski

Introduction

The T-34 chassis had anumber of upgrades and simplifications throughout its productionrun, but the turrets and wheels showed the greatest amount ofobvious variety. The tank proved to be an amazingly efficientmachine and, fortunately for the USSR in the 1940’s, wascapable of upgrading as times and needs changed. This articlewill primarily be about the diversity in T-34-85 turret featuresand what these particular turret features mean to a modeler. Inresearching this story on the T-34, I looked at the most recentwritings I could get hold of, as well as older, pre-glasnostinformation, some of which is, with no surprise, conflictinginformation. Part 1 I hope will be of interest to all modelers ofall scales. Parts 2 and 3 cover only 1/72 turrets and detailsets.

The wheels and chassis of1/72 T-34’s are covered well in Doug Chaltry’s review: ModelingThe T34 .Doug discusses the ESCI and Eastern Express T-34-76 chassis &turrets and delves into the AER T-34-85 hull & suspension.Resin turret conversions/upgrades are currently offered by LEVAProductions, Armo Models, and Al By.

As they say in Americanbaseball, "You can’t tell the players without aprogram", and I hope that this article turns out to be agood "Program" of the T-34-85 in 1/72. With regret Icannot include 1/76, 1/48, 1/87 or 1/35 scale T-34-85 kits withinthe scope of this article. As more 1/72 variants are offered inthe future I hope to update this article. For some people,getting a new after-market turret will mean an upgrade to abetter one; for some it will mean a new variant for theircollection. All the aftermarket turrets described in this articlecan be used with the ESCI, AER, Revell and Eastern Express 1/72scale T-34 kits (with a little minor modifying at times).

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