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Яusso-Soviэt Forum
Russian or Soviet vehicles/armor modeling forum.
Academy T=34/85
long_tom
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Illinois, United States
Joined: March 18, 2006
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Posted: Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 06:42 AM UTC
I just received it and the kit looks good, though I haven't tried to build it yet pf course. It certainly looks better than Dragon's, which I didn't like and is more expensive.
wowcool
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Solomon Islands
Joined: September 26, 2015
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Posted: Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 07:19 AM UTC
It certainly is the simpler and cheaper alternative to the venerable Dragon kits. However, the "112 factory" release has been criticized for its "overdone" cast texture and had some quite serious engineering flaws that had the rear hull parts just barely fitting against each other.

Perhaps they remedied those in the "Berlin 1945" version as it apparently contains a few completely new runners.
Cantstopbuyingkits
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European Union
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Posted: Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 07:54 AM UTC
Apparently this kit has numerous accuracy issues according to the ML forum users, though the moulding does like pretty good.
long_tom
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Posted: Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 08:27 AM UTC
It has both the Ww2 and postwar turrets. Perhaps the tank was meant originally for a postwar depiction only?

As far as inaccuracy, as in inaccurate for Factory No. 112, or inaccurate as far as any T-34/85 is concerned?
wowcool
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Solomon Islands
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Posted: Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 07:32 PM UTC

Quoted Text

It has both the Ww2 and postwar turrets. Perhaps the tank was meant originally for a postwar depiction only?

As far as inaccuracy, as in inaccurate for Factory No. 112, or inaccurate as far as any T-34/85 is concerned?



IIRC they used unit 738, an example from the Korean war, for reference. It's currently stored in the Patton museum, you may want to do more research into that particular unit to better judge the accuracy of Academy's product.

According to this website, unit 738 was made by Factory No. 183.
clay_cliff
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Lima, Peru
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Posted: Thursday, December 17, 2015 - 10:11 PM UTC
I don't know if the 738 was restored, but the rear hinges are not the 112's style, and the turret is not the "flattened" one (as 183's should be).
jasegreene
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Posted: Friday, December 18, 2015 - 12:12 AM UTC
I was thinking about getting one to build as a postwar but I will wait until I can read about this and do my own research a little more.
long_tom
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Posted: Friday, December 18, 2015 - 06:48 AM UTC
I would in fact love to make a Korean War version of the tank, but with the WW2 turret version. Yes, that does look too rough. My plan was to make a knocked-out but externally mostly-intact model, as at least one photographed picture indicates (shown on a thread on this very topic earlier). The turret was blackened so its numbers were obscured, and for my purpose, which exact model it was is unimportant.

When consulting reference books on the T-34, late in the WW2 a lot of them were rebuilt in a variety of ways. I cannot help but wonder what the story was after the war, since even after the fighting stopped, some surviving tanks must have been repaired for future purposes. And postwar production tanks would not necessarily have been entirely built from all-new components, especially early on.
GeraldOwens
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Posted: Friday, December 18, 2015 - 11:20 AM UTC

Quoted Text

I would in fact love to make a Korean War version of the tank, but with the WW2 turret version. Yes, that does look too rough. My plan was to make a knocked-out but externally mostly-intact model, as at least one photographed picture indicates (shown on a thread on this very topic earlier). The turret was blackened so its numbers were obscured, and for my purpose, which exact model it was is unimportant.

When consulting reference books on the T-34, late in the WW2 a lot of them were rebuilt in a variety of ways. I cannot help but wonder what the story was after the war, since even after the fighting stopped, some surviving tanks must have been repaired for future purposes. And postwar production tanks would not necessarily have been entirely built from all-new components, especially early on.


North Korean tanks were a mixed bag of 1944 and 1945 production models from all three plants, so you have plenty of leeway. Academy's kit is a 1945 production model from Factory 112.
The 1945 turret shell was distinctive in having a turret bustle that barely cleared the engine deck. The separate ventilators option was a short-lived experiment to place one ventilator directly over the gun breach. Apparently it didn't help clear gun fumes, and later tanks reverted to the conjoined ventilators. These tanks appear in photos from the summer and fall of 1945, but I haven't seen one in any combat photos from 1945. Actually, it's hard to find any combat photos of the late turret version.
Academy's First T-34-85 kit, the Factory 112 version built in Gorky, has overstated casting effects, and the ventilators should't be textured at all, being forged steel, not sand castings. Wet and dry sandpaper to the rescue. The contours of the engine deck are slightly wrong at the forward edge (at least for Factory 112), but this is conveniently concealed by the turret overhang--if you choose not to fix it, I won't tell a soul. The track pattern isn't quite correct for Factory 112, but nobody offers this pattern, so again, just live with it. You may want to refine the join between the cupola and turret roof.
On the plus side, Academy's T-34-85 is a drastic improvement over the RPM kit of this version.
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