Karl N. Hoy unravels the mystery in this In-box review of the Iraqi T-55 ‘Enigma’, a new release from Tamiya in 1/35.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Thanks for this review Karl, just what I needed. I am not at all surprised by the tracks or the cloth mesh grill material, just standard Tamiya.

thanks karl- very in depth review.

Thanks Karl, great review & history lesson !

Thanks indeed for the acknowledgements, but I think you have the best merits for this great review

Thanks a lot for sharing mate!

Thanks for the nice words guys, I'm just glad you all enjoyed the review.

I have some diagrams regarding the difference between variants and the quirks of the Bovington example which were provided to me by Mauro, I will get them posted up today or tomorrow as they are very useful.

Anyone know when the Enigma actually went into service?

Everything I read says they took part in GW1, well duh, yeah, but when did they go into service?

I do believe that the Enigma took part in the battle at Khafji SA, but I cannot be for sure. I do know that wikipedia says they did, but wiki isn't always right

I'm guessing here but I'd say very late 1989/early 1990.

Who knows? Considering the secrecy of Iraq army I think is almost impossible to know a certain date

Anyway at the end of the war (which was stopped by the UN resolution number 598 in August 1988) the Iraq still had the Iranian territories occupied during the war. The existence of program to reinforce the Iraqi weapons in case of an Iranian counter offensive is a very likely guess in my opinion. We can consider the Enigma project as a step of that program, so, as Karl rightly said, probably the tank was entered in service in that period

Cheers

Yeah, that is what I figured. Reason I ask is that our 2013 model show, the military theme is going to be "Behind the Iron Curtain" Basically any Soviet or client state from Churhill's Iron Curtain Speech of 1946 to the fall of the wall in 1989. Was just seeing if I could stick the new Tamiya Enigma in there.

I suppose in a way, there is nothing saying it wasn't in service before the end of '89....so while it would be up to someone else to prove me wrong....I do have other kits I can build, just this one is new and shiny! LOL

So, as promised, I will not post the diagrams that Mauro sent me. I hope they will be of help to anyone building this kit.

Please remember the following diagrams are courtesy of Mauro De Nittis 'spiderfrommars' and are posted for discussion purposes only.

I read a review of this kit on PMMS, and they state that Tamiya based the kit on research done on the Bovington example, the Bovington Enigma as far as I am aware is a Polish Built T-55,

So why did Tamiya not at least provide a new engine deck, another optional part to replace part D-41, come on, how hard would that be.

Very disappointed in Tamiya now to be honest, it just feels like they are simply 'cashing in', they have made no attempt to correct mistakes, and made no attempt to provide optional parts allowing the modeller to do either a Russian, Czech or Polish versions.

We have companys like Dragon and many others all pushing the hobby forward and Tamiya are just churning out the same old stuff with a few extra added bits to cash in.

Tamiya could make a Polish deck without even thinking about it if they wanted to, and offer it as an optional part, the fact that they do not simply speaks volumes about the company now.

I have to agree with you Matt- it would have been nice to see those parts corrected. I also recently read about Tamiya's new Israeli M51 kit in AFV Mag- they still had those solid moulded grab handles they were using back in the 70s which is pretty awful for a modern made kit.

Besides the conversion kits for the T55, does anyone else make the Iraqi T-55 ‘Enigma’ as a kit?








~ Jeff

No, I don't so, but not 100% sure to be honest.

I seem to remember seeing an Enigma in an old Trumpeter Catalogue a few years back.

The Tamiya Enigma is still your best option I think if you want to build an Enigma, and you do not want to use conversion kits.