Looking good. Funny thing this sure looks like the 1/16 trumpeter that was scaled down!

Here are the post -1942 type tracks installed:

Looks good, Ted. Looking forward to see the kit with full tracks.

Although a Model 1940/41 hasn't yet been announced, the 1943 T-34/76 "Mickey Mouse" (two turret hatches) model is now available for sale in Taiwan. Stay tuned for a review very shortly...

Hey Ted, On the box art for the hex turret the rear wall hinges look like the large factory 112 type and not the petite factory 183 type. Is that really the case on the plastic model? Is 1940/41 model planned as well?
Thanks, DK

Never say never, when it comes to T-34s. LOL!



This T-34 was built at Krasnoe in February or early March 1942 with these tracks and probably with an M-17 motor. In another photo one can see the small round transmission hatch.

In large part you are correct. Most Krasnoe Sormovo T-34s were delivered with waffle tracks of one form or another, but in early 1942 they had not started to make tracks there. They were supposed to get them from STZ, but when the river froze it was impossible to ship anything by barge from Stalingrad. Tracks were in very short supply there, and for a time there were finished tanks parked without them.

These links are typical of KhPZ tanks (with a footnote about "chevron" tracks) and most everyone else's until the spring of 1942, when each producer went their own way and started making unique types of track. At that time Zavod No. 112 was using waffle tracks similar to the STZ track links, 550mm wide, and in 1943 they were using 500mm waffle track like everyone else. That's the type of track in the AFV Club kit you refer to. I like both set very much.

Cheers

Scott Fraser

No, no. What I was trying to say is that I have never seen 550mm "plate" tracks of this type on the version of the tank depicted in the kit though I have seen them on certain other Model '42s from other manufacturers of the T-34 (specifically a recovered Factory 183 produced OT-34 and one or two others).
I've been trying not to get too arcane when the subject in question is specific, though I really could have been clearer, since it can get very complicated and, more often than not, just confuses the issue with anyone who isn't a huge T-34 fan.
Now if you can find a tank from a later production batch (of the type depicted in the kit) with 550mm plates I'll be able to change the statement "I've never seen" to something else.

Mark