The turret build is reaching completion and I have to say, so far this kit fits together extremely well. The only exception so far are the side pieces on the device on the mantlet, they were fiddly without good reference tabs. The rest are fitting very nicely.

Almost have the hull completed now, so time to start uploading pics. Part D11/D12 still don't make sense and I'm not sure if I will bother with them or not as they just don't fit well and are hidden anyways. I will say the tracks alone make this kit a huge improvement over the Bronco ones, friction fit and super easy to do.

watching this one with alot of interest, as this is turning out to be a great project!

Got a reminder/kick in the butt that I hadn't updated so here I go uploading the photos and notes from the build, should have them all up by the weekend.



The dozer blade is really nice and fairly intricate to put together and is movable in case you wish to display it in action. My only two comments are that pieces D45 are ridiculously small and were I not doing an out of box review I'd replace them with fine wire into drilled holes as they will never stay on during the course of the build (I've already knocked one off to God knows where!). Also, if you're as oblivious as I, you may not immediately recognize that the D46 sub-assembly is the unlabelled part that goes on the dozer blade.

The suspension is very detailed, very intricate, and has some aspects I wasn't thrilled about. The first thing is the D24/D25 and D1/D2 pieces which don't fit perfectly well. The D24/D25 ones especially have a nasty gap around the base that fits into the hull that will be a pain to fill, even with Mr Putty and an acetone wipe. D1/D2 are these little boxes that overhang depressed areas and they want to sit at a slant, which will block other parts if you let them. Finally, the D39 parts are a pain to fit, as they have slightly offset pins and its not immediately obvious until you test fit them which orientation they are supposed to be in. This is problematic for the rearmost one on both sides as the pins don't quite fit without a lot of force but, since its difficult to figure out their orientation, I was nervous that I was forcing them into the wrong holes. Finally, these pieces have a trap set into them because they tell you to glue small articulating arms into these pieces before placing them on the model. Don't do this! What you don't din out until the next step is that these small arms fit into three of the roadwheel arms per side. Since there are no locating tabs to lock the orientation and you're doing it by eye, chances are they won't meet up properly. Leave those off until you get the suspension arms placed and then you can pop them into place quite easily.

The roadwheels are supposed to be glued to the arms in step 1 and then later glued to the hull. I didn't do this as I'm not a fan of glued roadwheels for painting. However, the arms fit with variable degrees of tightness to the wheels as the usual polycaps in the roadwheel are hard plastic parts in this kit, so I'm ending up gluing them on anyways with the tracks to hold them level. Otherwise, they flop around a bit and fall off (some, three of them are on like a rock).

One thing that I will confess I was unhappy with on the drive is that the kit really forces you to glue the arms to the wheels and idler during construction, which makes fitting them a bit of a problem insofar as you can't remove bits for painting. With that said, it is nicely detailed and I am glad it is single link track, as DS style tracks on those two extended return rollers on each side don't look like they'd hold up under tension.

One other thing worth mentioning is that don't glue the dozed blade in place so it can't move. There are two locating male and female connectors that attach the front hull top and bottom together. They are a very snug fit (as are most of these connections on the kit) so you're going to have to push hard on the glacis and forward hull. Pushing that hard on the dozer blade can only end in tears. . .

Thanks for this post Matt!
Even when I find your build really tempting, this is another Panda kit I will pass from...
They keep repeating their usual -annoying- engineering and wrong instructions.
I'm not ready to wrestle with their tricky suspensions and fiddly parts.

I will say that this kit is a significant step forward for Panda in that there aren't many traps to it and the detail is extremely fine. Comparing it to the Bronco and Hobby Boss kit is painful when you start to examine them; the Panda level of detail and crispness is very much higher. My biggest criticisms of the Panda kit is that there are suspension parts where the gaps could have been minimized by reconfiguring the parts, the need to glue the suspension arms to the road wheels and idler is annoying, and their obvious quest to keep everything in perfect scale means some of the parts are fiddly in the turret baskets and such. That said, I would absolutely build this kit again and would be delighted if they released an earlier ZTZ-99 without the side turret ERA (I like the look of those early ones very much).

Oh, and I do wish it was possible to find one of the Voyager aftermarket main gun barrels. I don't like two part barrels because I'm lazy, but these Soviet style barrels really are better in metal.

So as I'm getting the rest of the pictures from the build up I figured I'd give my initial thoughts (I'm pulling photos and such so I can be at my rivet counting best when it comes to accuracy assessment!). Keeping in mind that the A2 version is really a major redesign and I don't have the corresponding kits from Hobby Boss and Bronco but earlier marks of the upgraded tank; this is much superior from a modelling standpoint. While I have some spots in the suspension and ERA on the turret that annoyed me they are not major obstacles. More importantly, the kit is extremely well detailed, textures are good, and there is an honest attempt at scale thickness delicate molding. For a highly detailed kit it is relatively straightforward to build. Not Tamiya shake and Bake but the philosophy seems to be that the kit will be as straightforward as possible without sacrificing detail.

The fender supports on the front are delicate and fit very well, with the mudguard being a thinner separate piece. Ejection marks are heavy but hidden.

The rear hull is detailed and the baffles are delicate so take more care than I did cutting them out. The plastic is a little soft and will tear if you're closer than a mm or so to the actual part when cutting the sprue.



the molded on handles are very nice but could probably be sanded off and replaced for a better look. Honestly, I just ran a scriber around them to create an overhang and called it good.

The barrels are the worst part of the kit, fit wise. That said, separate barrels are almost always the poorest part of any kit so no surprises there. There are gaps and the flat end of the barrel (the one without access ports) for some reason has one sprue attachment that is thick and overlaps slightly, making it a bit of a pain to clean up. Aside from that, the detail is good enough but if you're as lazy as I tend to be, just leave them off or replace with a voyager resin barrel.

The tracks are nicely detailed and have the ejection pin marks in the track link where they'll be covered with the pads. Nice is you want to chew up the pads a bit, especially as Panda's sifter plastic will really take to nicks and gouges. The jig is a nice touch that isn't actually shown in the instructions for some reason. My only lament is that these would have been the perfect tracks for pins and depressions to make them slightly workable. As it is, the glue is the only thing holding them together and the attachment point is small. I used Tamiya tape to hold the runs together and still managed to knock them apart any number of times. Not my strong suit!