Hi Guys,
What is the best detailed kit for a T72, I have no idea of the mark & can't post pics at the moment to help,all I know is that is the type mainly found in the deride you tank depots in the Ukraine after the Soviet Union collapsed.

Sorry to be so vague, but at work & have no way of access the pics I have at home.

Cheers Mike

Are you sure they're not T-80's? Most of the photo's I've seen of rusting tanks in Ukraine are derelict T-80's (the Kharkov plant was the one producing them). As for the T-72, I don't think anyone does a proper early one out of the box. Most of the kits from Trumpeter (barring the 1:16th monster) are later models and the venerably Tamiya kit was based off of a NVA T-72M1. I knwo that SBS Model and Miniarm have done conversion sets for early model 72's. It may also be worth checking out the How to model a T-72 topic on here and maybe come back with some photo's of what you're looking to for inspiration.

Hi Benjamin,
Honestly not sure I will check, I was originally told that the pics I had were mainly T72s & T64's with the odd T62 thrown in for good measure. But if as you said the Karpov plant made the T80's like they did the T64 then logically that is what they should be more off both those vehicles.

Cheers
Mike

The Kharkov plant produced T-64's until they were forced to add T-80U production (they produced a fairly small number of T-80U) and then changed to T-80UD production. I am unsure if they had T-64 and T-80U/UD production side-by-side, but I doubt it. Most likely they were refitting T-64's and building new T-80UD.

Ukraine is going to be littered mainly with T-64's in the depots, with a smaller number of all other tank types (T-62, T-72, T-80B, and T-80U/UD). Accurate numbers of what Ukraine has/had is hard to come by.

Earlier this month, a new Trumpeter catalog appeared online, showing a T-72A kit scheduled for 2018.

Hi;

Not to add to the confusion but; Just how early of the T-72 do we wish to go. If you are trying to build just A T-72A then you can start with the Tamiya kit, People tend to forget that there were T-72s before the A suffix, the very early T-72s had the Luna Search lite on the Port side of the turret, and there were Hand Rails on the front quarter of the Turret. On the side where the Luna was located later, there was A very Small search lite mounted on A Bracket just outboard of the coax M.G. ! In S. Zaloga's early Book on the T-72 its well illustrated altho most of the Book is only in Black/White !!

CHEERS; MIKE.