To date i have concentrated on Modern Arnour from Western Europe, to be fair Uk and Germany, but i want to expand East, so what are the best 1/35 Asian MBT kits out there?

There's less than you might like, but more than you might expect. Bear in mind that the majority of Asian countries have no MBTs or rely on the T-55, so these are what's available for countries that have built their own.

Japan: Tamiya do the Type 90 (multiple overlapping boxings) and the Type 74 (two or three boxings) and have done the Type 61 in the past, though it's not been available for some time.

Korea: Academy do the M48A5K (well, most of it - I dare say there are one or two custom parts missing) and the K1A1. Trumpeter also do the K1 in original and K1A1 flavours, although the only difference seems to be the decals, since both contain the choice of guns. I've not seen a comparison but people were raving about the Academy version when it came out about a year ago. I have the Trumpeter one and it looks fine.

India: not a thing. Neither the Arjun nor the Vijayanta has appeared (despite my shouting for the latter on every website I can think of). Unless there's some fantastically expensive resin kit, of course.

China: Trumpeter have, over the years, produced just about every variation of the T-55 / Type 59/69 and successors. Many people hate them and early versions aren't even made of normal polystyrene, but they seem to scrub up OK. Some have the wrong tracks, which isn't readily fixable. Hobby Boss have just announced an intention to do new kits of two of the most recent Chinese MBTs.

Taiwan: AFV Club, I think, have cobbled together the M48H, which is an odd hybrid of the M60 hull and M48A2 turret with an M68 gun. I think this is mainly assembled out of other kits' parts but might have a few odd additions.

Pakistan: has built a T-72 variant whose name escapes me. Not sure whether there are conversions for the Tamiya or Zvezda kits, but a few quick Google searches starting with "Pakistan tank" ought to narrow it down.

Iran: see Pakistan.

There's probably more but this is what comes off the top of my head.

Thanks for that, it gives me a place to start looking, so cheers

The Tamiya Type 61 is a real old (1970) kit. I think it has one tree of updated parts on it on last release. What's really horrible are the tracks - no detail on the inside. I got a set of Modelkasten tracks for the one I have but some don't like them (hard to assemble, fragile once built).

Actually, with Hobby Boss coming out with the modern Chinese STZ 99 series in the near future we're fairly well covered for the modern stuff. A new tool K1A1, Type 90, and STZ 99 pretty much cover the MBT's that aren't of Russian origin. The Arjun is still in development sorta and the rest is made up of T-90 or T-80 variants. You can cover those in resin add-ons from SP Designs and Miniarm but there is a gaaping hole in injected plastic for Russian produced stuff. Zvezda has been promising a T-90 for a couple of years now bt there's no sign one is actually coming out.

Matt

Cheers guys, think i'm gonna start with the K1A1, quick question does ROK use NATO colours cos they look mighty close to the colours on NATO MBTS?, i need to restock my paint and if i could start off getting the right colour that would help!

There's always North Korea's "Sky Horse":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%27onma-ho

Based on the T-62. Could make for an interesting (if somewhat speculative) conversion for the adventurous.

- Steve

To judge by the box-top, it looks as though Korea is still using a colour scheme similar to the US MERDC scheme from the 1970s and early 1980s. There are few precise matches for the MERDC colours but if you went for dark earth, olive green, white, and black, you wouldn't be far off.

FOr malaysia right now we just had PT-91...
to model it you have to do major mod to T-72 ... so far tamiya, revell and MiniHobby made them...

if not mistaken there is a resin kit for the tank in 1/72

just found that Life color do a NATO MERDC set, here is a link:
https://airbrushes.com/product_info.php?cPath=4_202_203&products_id=2092&osCsid=395006287d8c7308a6a4c9ec5093ffae

thanks for pointing me in the right direction, i am actually switching from tamiya to life color since doing my Merkava mk4 with LIC upgrades, there weathered olive drab was the best match i could find for the current IDF sceme

Just another quick one, are there any upgrades for the K1a1 kits?

the Iranian tank is called zulfiqar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zulfiqar_%28tank%29

Yes there are accessory sets for the K1A1 and they may contain some upgrade parts but I doubt it. Legend makes one and a Korean company named Neograde makes a great accessory set with a few upgrade parts (hatches, gun mounts, sights, etc)... I think they've got everything including the kitchen sink in this set for accessories. Also, I have the first Academy K1A1 kit that came out just over a year ago, I was disappointed with some of the casting so hopefully the new tooled kit is a bit better.

http://www.hlj.com/product/LEGLF1166
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/news/4302


For PE another Korean company makes a set and it's the only one I've found so far. Unfortunately I'm kicking myself in the ass as I can't find the link now. I saw this product promoted on PMMS about a year ago. I'll keep looking. It was a new or very small company that I never heard of prior.

Also, I'm not sure if they've updated their decals in the Academy kit but they were all wrong... well, they were missing alot. Most of the K1A1s you find in photographs have they're unit markings covered up for security reasons so of course Academy as included decals that look like the cloth covers... The kit decals will get you close but not 100% there unfortunately. Please take my comments with a grain of salt, I haven't looked at the Trumpeter kit so it may be the better of the two kits...

Recommended reading: Tankograd's ROKA

http://www.tankograd.com/cms/website.php?id=/en/ROKA-7009.htm

Here's some other links you might find helpful:

http://www.militarymodelling.com/news/article.asp?a=4073
http://www.missing-lynx.com/reviews/modern/academy13215reviewcs_1.html
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/news/4097

FOUND THE PE SET!!

KA Models out of Korea

http://www.hlj.com/product/KALMM35001

I can't find their actual website but companies like HobbyLinkJapan, Lucky Models and probably Mission Models carries them... Good Luck, Post some pictures when you start your build!

wil do.

does anyone know it the ROK has a camo scheme with winter in mind?

I don't know if it is still available, but they had a limited edition set which gave you mesh PE and a small colour booklet with good pictures of it in service. The KA Models PE set is very good you can check it out here: http://www.hobbyzon.com/product.php?p=27369 " TARGET="_blank"> http://www.hobbyzon.com/product.php?p=27369
I'd check the paint colours for you, but I'm in a remote area at the moment. BTW an interesting feature of the K1A1 is its ability to raise the back so it can stay behind mountains to fire.

cheers elph, gonna be a while before i'm looking at paint, that pe set does look the biz so i might have to have a look at getting that.

the thing with the winter scheme is it just occured to me that with the winters in the area being a bit on the snowie side i would imagine they had a scheme, like the german dark and white strip job, but all the ones on the internet are green and basked in sunshine, as are all the models - just want to be different.