I came across this kit at the scottish ipms show and i was wonder if it would need much work to convert it into a Syrian T-72AV?

as far as i know and i am not an expert in any sense is that a T-72AV is basically a T-72 with ERA bricks.

i would appreciate any and all input.

Hi David;

What you have there is A old DML kit from the 1980s era, touted as 35th scale, they were closer to 32nd !
To answer your question; "Yes" You could build it as one of the T-72s seen in Syria. Altho, it will take A lot of work to make it look Good ! As for there kit's overall; They were Awful; Over Scale, Lacked Detail, Missing Detail's, Thick plastic, !!!! So If you are still going to give it A Go; All I can say is; "GOOD LUCK" !!

CHEERS; MIKE.

The kit is a T72B with ERA
I'm not sure if Syria uses T72B.
The photos i have in mind are all about T72A with ERA so different turret...
BTW this kit is junk now. Could i suggests you to wait a few months that the new T72AV from Trumpeter will hit the market?

yeah i'm hearing alot of negatives from some other people i know so i think i'll park the bus and wait for the trumpeter kit.

thanks folks for your help

If you did go ahead and bought it you can always build it and use it to practice painting and weathering on ...
/ Robin

I agree with Robin - build it, have fun finishing and weathering.

I also have this one in my stash and is half-built for reasons such as a poor fit and especially emplacement of the ERA blocks; dimensionally it may well be off and the gun barrel is way too large, but I'll (eventually) soldier on with it. I might even treat it to a replacement barrel from Accurate Armour and populate it with some decent crew figures.

Of course, some of my resolve is due to the fact that I'm unlikely to be able to move it on anytime soon due to Trumpeter's efforts!

Good luck.

I've got 7 of these, another dozen without ERA, 13 T-80's in various configurations from the same time in Dragons history and 9 Kirin Lion of Babylon and Kuwaiti M84's in my stash. Been using them as paint mules. They build up quick and I've built so many of them over the years I don't need instructions.

Anybody want some? I'll pay you to take them.


kidding.

Fast and fun builds with detail best described as chunky. Not realistic, but just chunky. Worth $10 at a show for a build you don't have to care about.

And still out there in their Zvezda iterations with decal selections based in reality as opposed to 1998 intelligence estimates.

But just too many major issues to be worth any serious effort these days with better choices available.

Brief aside: Banner (also released in a Trumpeter box 20 years ago) of China did a weird version that combined a copy of the Tamiya kit hull with a copy of the turret and ERA of this kit.

Dragon had the misfortune to issue a large line of Soviet era tanks and armored cars in 1988-89, just before the Soviet Union fell apart. With the demise of the Cold War, accurate drawings and close-up photos became available, and the Dragon kits looked pretty dismal (they hadn't even used the best published drawings back then--their gun tubes were quite obviously oversized, and the turret shapes were unconvincing).

These molds were sold off to Zvezda, who release them to this day.

There were at least a few T-72B with ERA used by pro goverment forces (Tiger squadron I guess). They were painted in a two tone sand/light brown camo, or in a three tone with light grey admixed. At least one of them met an untimely explosive end.
If you are interested in reference photos, just drop me a PM.

But back in those days they were the only game in town for Soviet armor, no one else had BMP's, BRDM's. There wasn't an internet to shop around for good kits and Tamiya's T-62 wasn't that great and their T-72 was a mess so you were pretty much left with Dragon/DML/Kirin. One of my CO's came up with the idea of using actual models of the vehicles for vehicle I.D. training instead of the little flash cards we were given. I built as many vehicles I could get my hands on, give them a quick paint job and we'd put them out in the field and let new guys (and officers who needed it more than we did) look at them thru our various optical gear and I.D. them. It was better than the flash cards because you could get 3/4 views, turrets rotated and really see the difference between all the vehicles both NATO and Soviet block. And once my C.O. had the models, the other 5 C.O.'s in my battalion had to have a set for their soldiers to train on so I spent about a month doing nothing but building and painting tanks, APCs, and other equipment as training aids for my battalion. Beat having to spend all that time in the motor pool.