Hi Gang,
following situation: I have Trumpeters Finnish T-55 from which I took the mineroller. Now I am playing with the idea of building a Peshmerga tank from Iraq. My Question: Is the Trumpeter kit any good and what kind of AM stuff will be needed to build a decent model?
Tanks
H.-H.

unfortunately trumpeter kit has a very big issue with front hull shape, is completely wrong.
For an accurate model i suggest you to start with Tamiya kit, with Friulmodel tracks and voyager or other manufacturer PE.
Tamiya kit OOB is correct only for a soviet production T-55, so you must check pics to looking for this kind of tank in Peshmerga hands

Regards

Hi, Hans Herrmann!
All the hull meassurements are wrong, due to the need of internal space for the motorisation of the kit.
So, the hull is too high, thus making every other shapes wrong.
The turret shape is so so but still usable, and the detail level is on ths soft side...
The wheels are inaccurate also, but for a fast build you may live with them.
The tracks are... well, awful.
Anyway,if you just want to give some use to the kit other tan being the donor of the dozer blade, I strongly suggest you to build it as is and try some new painting techniques on it. Or try some scratch building to improve a few parts, since the kit quality/accuracy does not justify any investment in AM stuff.
You can take a look at a Type-59 built here, to see what I mean:
http://www.militarymodelling.com/forums/postings.asp?th=100062

And other Trumpeter "fans'" work here:
http://trumpeter.webcrow.jp/Gallarie.htmlhttp://trumpeter.webcrow.jp/Gallarie.html

I always admire modellers who take the hard route on a build
and try to use a kit in the stash that might not be the best kit or most accurate, and do there best to make a good build after all anyone can buy a Next generation kit stick metal track on, etched set and resin updates.
I always use these builds to try out new tech and paint ideas!

Hi Guys, thanks for all the hints, seems like the Trumpeter kit has to remain in the plastic bag. Looks like building one of the Pershmergas makeshift armoured vehicles is much easier.
H.-H.

Here's a link to a site that has a lot of pics of peshmerga and their vehicles. If you scroll through it, I'm sure you'll find some interesting subjects. http://kurdistanskyscrapers.com/topic/9346414/1/

Hi all,
I have a kit of T-69_II just here, and a good scale drawing of T-55 from M-Hobby.
I would say that the error in height is easy to correct: it's all under the fenders. Removing a protruding stripe of plastic from here, one loses 2 mm in heigth. If one wants to complete the correction, he can remove a further mm from the sides of the hull.
Of course this will include adaptations in the zone of the front hull, with a reduction in length of the glacis plate that reduced the excessive length of 1.5 mm. It could be necessary to move the tensioner pin.
The worst problem is to find a well-sized sprocket, because the diameter of the one in the kit is excessive by 2 mm. Having many old unbuilt kits of this family, I could cannibalize one from a kit of Esci, and the tracks too.
Probably the reduced size of the sprocket will allow to reduce somewhat the length of the hull's back, after having studied if/how to correct the engine deck.
It's a pity that the producers of functioning tracks don't include sprockets too.
Regards
Massimo

Hallo Hans-Hermann,
I suppose this info is useless but I will tell you what is my (wrong, lazy, and coward) plan for this kit (my box is T-54B mod.1952):
Having already got a surprisingly cheap Masterclub resin tracks set (MC135048CL), I will simply relax the suspensions 3 mm, and limit surgery to the bottom rear of the hull, where there should be a bezel (bevel?) between the hull floor and back that has been neglected by Trumpeter. This way, having a beveled joint both at front hull and back hull, it is not so evident how close the hull floor is to the ground. It still won´t look good but I hope it will not proclaim its unaccuracy as loud as Out Of The Box. Oh yes, then I will cover it with foliage, camouflage nets, tarpaulins, anti-RPG wire mesh, and if it is still too visible then I will place it under a destroyed building's rubble mountain - guess it will be cheaper than buying 17 taliban figures to cover it up
Grusse

If you do so, the drive sprocket and return roller will be visibly close to the ground. Correcting the hull height seems not so difficult.

Hi all - long time lurker, first time poster, yadda yadda...

I've been struggling with this very question since I got a couple Trumpeter T-55's in a kits lot a few years ago. I have a Tamiya kit to use as a reference/template and I believe the Trumpeter kit is salvageable. That is to say, the required surgery is extensive but not really all that hard. A few straight cuts will make the tank appear much more properly proportioned.

Comparing the kits to each other, here are the positive points:

1. Trumpeter roadwheel/axle spacing is almost identical to Tamiya. Big plus here.
2. Trumpeter glacis angle is OK. This also makes the surgical adjustments easier.

And the negative ones:

1. Trumpeter hull is too tall in height, as we know
2. Trumpeter fenders are level when they should slant downward toward the rear of the hull
3. Trumpeter nose is too long (due to hull height)
4. Trumpeter idler mount is too far forward and too high (due to hull height)
5. Trumpeter engine deck is too long, rear hull is too long


Sounds damning, but most of the issues are directly related to hull height. Removing the ridge under the (upper hull) fenders gives us "close enough" and another millimeter from the lower hull puts the Trumpeter hull height right where it "should" be. The reduced hull height necessitates a straight cut across the upper and lower hull fronts which corrects the glacis/nose issue, and repositioning the idler mounts. It also knocks a millimeter or two off the rear hull length, which for me is good enough without serious reconstruction of the rear portion of the hull.

The length of the rear hull and the location/diameter of the drive sprockets are still going to be an issue because of the way the rear hull is constructed. I am probably going to leave the rear hull pretty much as-is, maybe swap the drive sprockets if possible, maybe add the rear hull "bevel" if I can figure it out. I think after everything else this won't be really all that evident.

The procedure I'm planning:

1. Remove Trumpeter fenders and idler mounts to reinstall later
2. Reduce hull height as above - 2 mm from upper hull, 1 mm from lower hull sides, 3 vertical mm from forward hull sides to allow glacis to seat correctly.
3. Rework glacis and lower hull fronts to correct length/overlap of armor plates
4. Rework upper and lower rear hull as ambition allows
5. If possible, mount drive sprockets as low as possible to improve look and fender clearance, and replace sprockets if possible with spares
6. Reinstall idler mounts on new shorter lower nose
7. Reinstall fenders at correct slope
8. Replace tracks with spare Tamiya ones made redundant by Friuls.

I promise I will post pictures when I actually get around to this.

The most difficult part seems to find good sprockets, only those of Trumpeter T-62 and Tamiya T-55 are really good, but no sense to sacifice one of these kits. Those of Esci are usable with some corrections. Those of Skif are good if one uses the later type tracks as T-72. Eventually, those of an old T-62 of Tamiya could be considered as an improvement anyway.

I think you're right about the sprocket replacement. The more I think about it, the bigger sprockets won't really fit the corrected hull and leave sufficient fender clearance.

Maybe time to figure out how to make resin castings, or as you mentioned there's more in the market for T72 tracks and sprockets which, while not 100% correct for "upgraded" T55's would maybe be OK in a pinch.

Maybe one could choose to make some version with side skirts. On a T-69, this could help to hide a bit the too large sprockets. I think that there are variants of T-55 with skirts as T-72 or T-62 BDD.