Having heard the name mentioned on this forum, I looked them up on ebay and found they sold whole T-72 type tank kits. Can anybody tell me how good or bad they are? Thanks.

Forget it,dont waste your money on it.

Somehow this was exactly the response I anticipated.

Is even Tamiya's kit any good at all (besides the turret being bad)?

Only the Kirin Yugoslav/Free Kuwait M-84 came with a resin turret. The Kirin T72M1 was just the straight DML kit with different decals.

I thought the Tamiya T-72 was a good kit. I am not a T-72 expert so I couldn't tell you what needs to be done regarding accuracy, but there are online builds that can point out tweaks. The Tamiya kit is head and shoulders above the DML kit.

Tamiya's kit isn't bad, if you reshape the turret sides a bit with epoxy putty--it's a bit too round (I'm of the old school--if it isn't right, don't trash the kit, just fix it--there are aftermarket resin turrets out there for those who prefer easier solutions). The number of variants you can do with Tamiya's is limited because the applique armor panel on the glacis is molded in place. Still, it is by far the best starting point for any tank in the T-72 family.

The Tamiya kit is just fine so long as you knwo what you are getting and what to do about it.

The Tamiya T-72 represents a very rare T-72M1 from the NVA (East German Army) that were promptly retired after the German reunification and sent to museums and the like. It was essentially a Polish manufactured T-72M1 hull with a late T-72 turret. Only 27 were made. This is what Tamiya used, a museum piece, for their reference and that is why it is a often maligned kit, most people do not know exactly what they are getting so it looks wrong.

The hull can be backdated to a T-72 export version by either removing the add on armor of the front glacis yourself or replacing the front glacis with a SP Designs T-72 glacis conversion (kit 189). You could also get a correct T-72M1 turret for a much more common export tank or a rare Soviet tank (a small number of T-72M1 tanks were absorbed into the Red Army after a export sale of Soviet production fell through); or you could add a T-72A turret for a somewhat rare rebuilt Soviet T-72A early tank (After the 1973 Arab-Israeli war it was found that the T-72 front glacis was too vulnerable to newer ammo so the Soviets added a 16mm plate to correct for this. Some Soviet T-72A early's had this added when they were rebuilt, but this was not a very common occurance.)

So even OOB, it is a good kit, so long as you know what it is.

Jaques - you seem to know your T-72s.

How about the Kirin T-72M1 "Lion of Babylon"? Any good?

I'm not sure of this is the one Tom meant in his OP, as I don't know whether there are any other Kirin T-72s.

I ask because I picked one of these up cheap earlier this year (one of those inpulse buys) and it's currently in the stash awaiting attention.

- Steve

Let's just say that my knowledge of T-72's came at the cost of considerable headaches... And that is only in dealing with glacis detail. If we got into Turret changes/details it could go on and on...

As for the Kirin kits, they are DML kits with changes. The "Lion of Babylon" kit actually was the one they first added the 6 spoke wheels to. Now a days all DML T-72 kits come with both the 6 and 8 spoke wheels, but before this the very Early DML kits only came with the 8 spoke version. Otherwise I do not know of any other details that make them different from any other DML T-72.

The Kirin M84 kit came with a new turret and some other minor changes. Not really great castings and still based on the DML kit.

The problem with the DML kits is they are based on 1980's satellite photos and some incorrect guesses from the Military Intelligence services. DML did a great job to bring them out in the late 1980's, but you can tell that these are:

1. Some of DML's first work and

2. Getting really old in the teeth.

The dimensions of the T-72 line are essentially too long, too wide and too "squished", all by a matter of 3-5mm. This may not sound like much, but it does throw off the "look" of the kit.

The barrel scales out at around 155mm and really needs to be replaced/rebuilt.

The track is too wide by ~2mm. This means it interferes with the side skirts and makes the sprockets too wide. Also, the sprockets are not correct.

The fit of the kits is poor. I have built MANY of DML's T-72's and they just do not fit well, especially the upper and lower hull. Many pieces have incorrect detail, no detail, or are too large/small.

Does this mean they are BAD kits? No. But if you wanted something better than ok, it would be better to start with the Tamiya kit (or Hobbycraft...their hull/suspension is the same as the Tamiya kit but will need a few aftermarket pieces to get it up to speed) and get conversion pieces for it. DML kits are great for practice in either building, painting, or scratchbuilding.

So you have not lost out in buying the Kirin kit, so long as you know what you are getting and what you can do with it.

One more question: how good/bad is the replacement Verlinden turret, and what does it represent?

And why wouldn't SP designs have its own replacement turret when they already designed a new glacis plate? They didn't last time I looked.

Jaques - that's a very useful insight. Many thanks.

- Steve

Because it takes months of research before something can be made into plastic master and even then you will take a lot of heat from so called experts whose only expertise is labeling kits as unbuildable.
VP's turret is ok, but not entirely flawless( see review here). You can always build early Czech T-72M with it with minor adjustments (consult this blog).

Thanks for the info, Jacques. Here everybody has said that the Tamiya T-72M1 turret was not good and you said it was actually a very rare variant. Could I make an NVA tank out of the box with it (though I'd want to put an aftermarket barrel in place of the awful kit one)? I even thought of depicting the NVA tank that never was, with the light green paint that wasn't ready before the NVA broke up.

I agree with George, the Verlinden turret is probably best made into a early Czech T-72M turret (least amount of work).

As for SP Designs, T-72 items for the Tamiya kit are on the way. The glacis work was just a simple and easy piece of work Sergej did to test out the interest in T-72 items. He does not (and honestly cannot) go head to head with companies like Blast or Miniarm as he is a different type of manufacturer with a different mindset. His workspace is a spare bedroom in his apartment. He does gravity casting, not pressure casting. He likes to do esoteric items more than items of heavy interest or with heavy sales potential. I have been arm twisting him to make a lot more of the main stream stuff (the T-80 conversions for example) and he seems to be coming around.

I think Sergej will give a T-72A turret a shot, but with all the "heat" a person can take nowadays on the internet seemingly even before the kit is released, it may all depend on wether he wants to do T-72 stuff. (It is much easier to brush off criticism if you are doing what you want to.) I have also convinced him to do a correct T-72A/B front glacis (with three bars and only the cutout around the drivers hatch).

Requests and comments for future projects are always welcome even if they are not always acted on.