Whilst looking at the T-80BV walkarounds on the Dishmodels site, such as this one:

http://www.dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?p=2454

I noticed that some have the central periscope position on the commanders cupola overpainted? Also they have the pair of reactive armour blocks on the left hand side of the turret, nearest the gun, removed and replaced with a single one. Also most of the engine deck rivets are missing. Are these tanks in fact service vehicles or are they museum/preserved vehicles? In other words why the differences from standard?

Thanks,
Andy

Hi Andy;

Looks like you are looking at another Enigma as far as Soviet vehicles go, the answer could be any of the reason that you posted, it mite be just A vehicle that was Given A fresh coat of paint to make it look good for Public display.
The T-80 it seems is likely going to be Seen only in museums in the Future. It Hasent had A Good History, it looks Good from the outside but I dont think it was Popular with the Crew or the repair people.

CHEERS; MIKE.

Andy-
I think that Mike was pretty close to the mark. To me, it almost looks like the turret may not have even been the original one. Looking at the quality of the paintjob, it seems that more care was taken with the hull. The vision blocks are clear, marker lights looked good, and the exhaust looked, well, "used". The turret, on the other hand, looks like it was hosed down with a spraygun, with no regard to masking things off. For example, I couldn't find anything that wasn't painted over, except for the commander's "windshield" - and that had a lot of overspray. I even saw rust spots that were painted over without even a wire brushing. Possibly a rush job like Mike said.

Thanks for the replies guys. I did a little hunting and now know Sertolovo is home to a tank training battalion and the pics were taken at one of it's open days. Two of the T-80BV in the Dishmodel pics are different in that they are overall green whereas all the other pics I have of Sertolovo T-80BV show the three colour scheme (I know that Russia is going back to a monocolour scheme so maybe these have been hastily painted at the time). The copyright date on the pics says 2012 so I'm guessing they were taken that year. The pics here show some other interesting variations in T-80BV reactive armour too:

http://survincity.com/2012/05/tanks-in-sertolovo/

so I think I'll be finishing my T-80BV as one of these. Does anyone know here I can get better pics of that commanders cupola back rest that some vehicles show?

Regards,
Andy

Hi Andy,

This walkaround http://www.dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?p=880 was taken in Sertolovo in 2008. Here http://www.dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?p=858&lng=E You can find more photos of the event.

This walkaround http://www.dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?p=2003 was taken in Sertolovo in 2011.

This walkaround http://www.dishmodels.ru/wshow.htm?p=2454&lng=E was taken in Sertolovo in 2012.