T-34/85

Primary Manufacturers:ESCI and Al.By, plus others

By Dave Showell

Arguably the bestall-round tank of the Second World War, the Soviet T-34 is a realicon of the 20th century. If you want to have a trulyrepresentative collection of WW2 armour, you have to have atleast one (if not more) in your collection. Small scale buildershave been relatively well served in this area, with several kitsin 1/76 (Airfix, Fujimi, Matchbox) and 1/72nd (ESCI, AER, EasternExpress).

I particularly like theold ESCI kit. While the Eastern Express offering may match (oreven beat) the hard-to-find ESCI one in detail and quality, Ihave built enough (at least 10) of the earlier ESCI kit to knowall of its tricks and foibles. Also the Eastern Express kits arefiendishly expensive up here in Canada. Last year, while orderingsome kits from Philip at Tracks & Troops, I added the Al-byT-34/85 turrets essentially to "round out" the order.The following kit bash was the result. At the time I was not yetaware that Revell was about to announce the coming release of aT-34/85 - it figures!

The Al-byTurret

Al-by's replacementturret, moulded in yellow resin, is one of his earlier offeringsI think. It's a simple little kit which includes a hollow, onepiece turret, a gun barrel (business end hollowed out), and thehalf hatch. The moulding is of high quality, although maybe notas stellar as some of Al-by's more recent kits. As far as I cantell, the turret represents a mid-production version, with acasting line stretching from below the mantlet to the rear. Therewere some air bubbles in the rear of the turret, but these wereeasily filled. Interestingly, there were positioning holes forgrab handles on the sides and the rear of the turret.

The ESCIT-34 kit

Although it suffers from acouple of small faults, the ESCI T-34 is a really nice kit -especially given its age. ESCI produced two versions, a 1942 anda 1943 - later releases had hard tracks in place of the softplastic ones. PART's recent release of etched brass T-34 tracksmake the hard tracks less valuable, but at the time I began thisproject they were not yet available, so I used the ESCI link andlength ones.

Straight off the bat,there are a number of things that have to be fixed on the ESCIkit. Going from back to front, the first thing that has to bedone is fill the slots in the rear fenders where the box gascanisters fit in. This can be done with putty, although you mightnotice I just put a couple of thin pieces of stock plastic stripover the holes. Next, on the ESCI kit, where the lower hull joinswith the upper, there are three "hinges" (they aren'thinges as far as I can tell but that's what they look like).There should be only two, the left one and the right one - nomiddle. I have yet to see a photo of a T-34 of any year or markthat had the middle hinge. Once that is sliced off, you will haveto put in its place a bolt in line with the other bolts (I used apiece of stretched sprue, cutting a tiny pepperoni-like slice cutoff it to make the bolt). Next, using a pin vice, hollow out theexhaust pipes.

The next step is tricky.The ESCI kit comes with the engine grill as a separate piece, butthe mesh is moulded solid. To me, the look of the moulded meshisn't acceptable. My answer (I've done this at least five times)is to carve the "mesh" areas out from between thesupports using a very sharp exacto knife. This leaves fiverectangular holes in the engine grill. I then thin out thesupporting arms and the edges of the rectangles as much as I canwithout snapping the grill piece. Finally, I cut a piece of finebrass mesh (from model railroad supplies) and press it into placefrom the inside of the grill frame. The brass mesh conformsaround the supports - where necessary I use a dull pencil topress it into the corners. Then I super glue it into place.BEFORE you glue that grill into place, keep in mind that youcannot look down through the mesh into the engine compartment.There is a set of what look like louvers just below the mesh ofthe grill. I originally though that perhaps the crew could openand close these slats depending on the weather but afterexamining the T-34/85 at the Canadian War Museum I have come tothe conclusion that they are fixed in place. I painted thelouvers a rusty, dirty grey.

Next come the spare fueldrums strapped to the flanks of later T-34s. Think about whetheryou want to put these on or not. Photo evidence, from what I'veseen, seems to indicate that when T-34s (as well as JSs and KVs)were going into action, they topped off their internal fuel tanksand removed these tanks. If you think about going into a shootingwar with three big cans of diesel fuel an your rear deck, thismakes some sense. If you don't put the tanks on, you have toscratch the retaining mountings. Very late (post war) T-34/85sseem to have had a remote release for at least some of theirexternal fuel tanks. Looking at the Canadian War Museum example(which is pristine and in running condition) I actually wonder ifthe remote release is based on some sort of explosive bolt -there seems to be wires running to it. There is no connectionbetween the internal fuel tanks and the external ones. The ESCIexternal fuel tanks are not the ones seen in most photos. Theyhave the filler cap at one end, whereas it is normally found inthe middle. Also, they do not have recessed ends with handles andthey generally seem a bit small to me. To replace them, Iborrowed three fuels cylinders from the PST KV-1 kit. These arebigger, have recessed ends and handles. The moulding of theretaining straps is bad however, so I filed them off and replacedthem with thin plastic strip. After filling the mounting holesprovided on the kit - they didn't match the KV-1 retaining straps- I mounted the new fuel cylinders.

The next modification Imade was to remove what I think are mounting points for grabhandles moulded into the side of the ESCI hull. Since I was usingthin wire to make the handles, I cut these off and drilled smallholes to receive the ends of the wire. I then super glued thesehandles into place.

Moving to the front of thehull, it is also necessary to carve off the mounting points forgrab handles that appear at the top left and right of the glacis.Handles on the glacis seem to have been rare. The ESCI drivershatch causes me a certain amount of trouble. The hatch itself isnicely moulded but, to me, the hinge apparatus is way out ofscale and, as a result, the two view ports are fore-shortened. Icut the hinge portion off the drivers hatch and added a piece toextend the view ports back a bit. I then carved the separationbetween the two ports on the extension. Next, I cut the gianthinges off the glacis and sanded down the attachment point. Iwanted to have the hatch open, so I didn't bother replicating thehinge (I didn't think it would show). If I was closing the hatch,I would have built up a smaller hinge mechanism out of spareparts. It is also necessary to add a thin horizontal bar justbelow the bottom of the hatch. I think this is a "splashguard" to keep bullets or fragments from deflecting up underthe hatch cover (but I could be wrong).

Since I was building aT-34/85, I had to consider whether I needed to replace therounded front fenders with squared off ones. I have seen the /85with both types, so I assume that it depended on which factorywas the producer and what they had in stock. In the end I decidedto avoid the problem by removing the front fenders altogether.This makes the tank look quite different.

The last point to address,in terms of modifying the ESCI hull, is to remove those two funnylittle prongs that are moulded onto the front of the upper hull -I can find no evidence for these at all. Oh, and also carve offthe little shelf on the port side for mounting the antenna - thisis wrong in any case (the Soviets had a sort of "pot' formountings antennas) but the /85 had the antenna on the turretroof.

Moving to the runninggear, if you have a copy of the ESCI T-34/76 1943 the bogeywheels are almost unusable. They have tried to portray therubber-less steel wheels but have missed the look badly. I thinkit might be possible to carve them up to make them look closer tothe real thing, but it will be a struggle. These wheels were aninterim response to a rubber shortage anyway, and they are notcommon on /85s. The wheels of the T-34/76 1942 (solid with rubberrims) are better, but they lack bolt detail around the hubs. Idecided to use, instead, the Resin Master "pierced"style wheels which were seen on later T-34s. I think these arethe ESCI wheels with the inner hub carved out and replaced withthe pierced style wheels from the 1/76 Fujimi T-34/85. They lookpretty good for a late war vehicle. One final issue for therunning gear, the front return roller on the ESCI has a moulddimple where the hub should be - this should be filled. BECAREFUL when positioning the return and drive wheels - if youhave them out of line with the bogeys it will throw off the lookof your tank from the front and rear and could cause problemsfitting the upper hull onto the lower (been there, done that).

I put the tracks together,as per the ESCI instructions, and the Al-by turret went togetherwithout a hitch. I painted the running gear and tracks (mediumgrey) before attaching the top hull to the bottom. Before gluingthe two halves together, I painted up the tanker figure whichcomes with the ESCI kit and stuck him in the drivers position. Ifyou look in the hatch, you see him sitting there.

With the kit assembled, Ipainted it over all in Modelmaster Olive Drab. I then went backand used a dark green around any protruding items that I wantedto highlight - this helps to give depth to the model,particularly when doing a dry brush of highlights. Before drybrushing, though, I added the markings. These are Archer drytransfers and they are fantastic. There is no silvering and theygo on completely matt. The sheet has markings for severalT-34/85s so I'm going to have to build more...

With the decals in place,I added a few bits and bobs - the headlight (hollowed out andfilled with white glue), a canvas roll on the back of the turret(resin accessory by Leva), an unditching beam and antenna forexample. I then dry brushed the whole using Humbrol Buff orCanvass, painted the exhaust pipes rusty brown and addedoil/exhaust stains to the ends of the pipes and the area below.Using a soft pencil, I highlighted the tracks a grey-silvercolour and then went over them with some water-based red paint(from my kids' war hammer paints).

The final step was tomount the completed tank on a flocked wooden base, purchased at alocal craft store. I kind of like the way it turned out -particularly those Archer transfers!