I picked this kit up from someone in my AMPS club meeting on Saturday for $20. For those of you who have tackled the Glencoe PT-76 or its derivatives, the FROG or BTR50 APC (all three of which are ancient ITC and Ringo kits from the 60s), this kit is welcomed with open arms. For those of you who don't know what a PT-76 is, it is an amphibious light tank armed with a 76mm gun. It was used by the North Vietnamese Army during the latter days of the Vietnam War. The only tank-on-tank battles of that war occurred between M48A3s and PT-76s. The PT-76s did not fair well.

It looks to be a typical eastern European kit. The lower hull and running gear are in white plastic and the upper hull and turret are in gray. The gray "PT-76B" parts appear to be a conversion added to a pre-existing kit. The kit includes single link tracks. The white plastic used in the road wheels, tracks and road wheel arms seems to be different from the white plastic used for some of the hull detail parts. They have an almost shiny sheen to them and appear similar to a toy made in the far east. The idler wheels are short shot and there are some sink marks on the road wheel arms, nothing too bad though. Road wheels have back side detail inserts.

The gray parts are nicely done with good detail. The turret has separate periscopes and vision blocks. The upper hull is well done with no sink holes. The main gun is not moveable and is split done the center. The halves fit together nicely and the muzzle brake is not too bad.

The white parts that detail the hull are made of a softer plastic than the running gear plastic. The biggest fault with the kit is the sink holes in the back deck. The back deck has 5 sink holes on the surface from the injector marks on the underside. Most are in easy to fix spots and fortunately, the hard-to-reach spots have smaller sink holes. Nothing a little putty can't handle. The back deck needs a small portion cut away in order to fit onto the upper hull. This is shown in the instructions, a very simple job since all you do is follow a seam line.

Because of the gray PT-76B parts, some smaller white detail parts are not used, including an engine intake screen and several periscopes and vision blocks. The lower hull is very boat-like and is a one piece tub affair. The bottom of the hull is nicely engraved with the best detail of the kit. The water propulsion intake ports have grills that you place over them, a nice touch for the bottom of a tank hull.

The kit decals look like the flat decals found in most eastern European kits. If you do still have a Glencoe kit, keep the decals since they were superb and much better than this kit's decals. Painting suggestions are just for one version, but the decals are for several different nations.

Cool kit.

Rob... thanks. This AFV has always been a favorite of mine.

When you get this baby built up, I'd like to know and hear about it. I might have heard that that there are some problems with it, but not being a rivet counter, I don't really care... as long as it looks like a PT.

What local AMPS club are you a member of?

Sure will. It does look like a PT-76 to me, I've got the turret completed (less the gun) and most of the sink holes I discovered were puttied over and I sanded them down last night. Driver's hatch is molded in place and there is limited detail on the turret hatch. I had to use degreaser on the road wheel/track sprue. After the dishwashing liquid bath, there was still a shiny residue on the sprues, almost like 3in1 oil.

I noticed there is a small detail near the muzzle brake. I don't know if this is a mold error or if it is a bolt that would keep the muzzle brake on the main gun. Wish I had a detail shot of the real gun.