Military Model Scene

The latest AFV release in their 1/72 scale range from The Plastic Soldier Company is one of the most iconic tanks of the Cold War era, the Russian (...and Polish and Czech) T-55.  The options are provided for the T-55, T-55A, T-55AM1 or T-55AM2, appropriate for Soviet, East German, Polish and Czech armies.  They are of course scaled up versions of their 15mm scale kit which was released a few months ago.

Designed for quick assembly, and aimed primarily at wargamers looking at multiple models for gaming units, these are simpler than alternatives such as the 1/72 Revell kit.  You can easily build one of these straight out of the box in half and hour or so.  The fit of parts throughout is very good, and presented no problems.  The one thing you need to do when removing the parts from the sprues relates to the one-piece track units, which have some moulding feed points on the back side which need to be removed.  They come off easily, just make sure you clean-up the remaining marks, as they are on the face which glues up against the hull side.  Very easy to do though.

When you open the box you find 6 grey plastic parts sprues, two for each tank.  There is also a sheet of instructions, one side of which shows the sprue plans and coloured markets tied to colours for each of the different variants that you can build.  There are a number of optional parts depending on the variant, along with others that are common to all, such as the main hull, running gear, turret shell and so on.  The turret hatches can be fixed open or closed, so the only thing that might be considered as 'missing' in this one are the half figures that they have usually included in their other tank kits for the tank commander/loader.

I really like the look of the finished models, and in simple terms, they 'look right' to me.  There are no transfers included in the kit.

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For the gamer, with 3 per box, this is a good value way of building up your wargame units. 

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Robin