About 30 years ago, SELF-PROPELLED GUN SU-76M from ALAN was released as the first injection 1/35 model of this Soviet SP.

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Thanks!

On my list of one of the two worst 1/35th scale kits I have ever purchased (along with Zvezda's T-60). Massively thick parts, a scale three inches thick or so, and nothing like a self-propelled gun built on a light tank chassis. With very decent kits from Miniart and Tamiya, there is no reason to punish yourself with the Alan Su-76.

I think this review was still useful. Information on old kits is a good thing.

I agree with both of you and further it by wondering why I'd be interested in ever buying one of their kits with the field absolutely awash in terrific kits. Mediocre looks so much the worse in comparison.

Should be noted that this kit has seen a lot of reboxing under different labels. Maquette, Eastern Express, Ark and even Dragon have all issued this plastic under their label.

It's a 1990 kit when it was the only game in town which is the main reason it was recommended all those years ago.

With better alternatives available of this subject give it a pass. If you want a true nostalgia modeling experience might as well get a Renwal armor reissue because this thing was about the same level of quality.

Thanks Gents,

You each provided thew kind of insight I was hoping for. You may save a unwary modeler from a few hours of trauma.

I learned my lesson on an Eastern Express BT-42. I quite fancied a BT-42, but the Tamya one seemed too expensive, so I took the opportunity to buy an Eastern Express version when I saw it going cheap.

To be fair it isn’t a terrible kit. But detail is basic, and some features just plain wrong - for example it uses the BT-7 chassis including the BT-7 fenders which are wrong for the BT-42. Annoyingly the artwork shows the correct fenders.

I built it, it looks okay, lacking obvious detail such as the perforations on the gun muzzle, and it took me a lot of extra work to assemble and get the fenders looking roughly correct.

I concluded in the end that my extra time, the approximate resolution of the fenders and the limited detail was not offset by the saving over theTamiya version.

I will not buy the like again.

Cheers,

Nigel

P.S. I have the Tamiya SU-76.

Alan, Maquette, Eastern Express were the only game in town for these subjects 20 years ago. These. I remember how excited we were over the EE KV-85 and BT-42 that wasn't a solid block of resin.

I still have a bunch in the stash as their chunky assembly and detailing is easy on my eyes. But no matter nice it looks in the box, there's always some assembly that is just baffling or doesn't fit without a great deal of elbow grease.

We really do need a bunch of new reviews of these kits. Most online now date from 2000 or so when they were worthwhile attempts at the subject matter. And the molds have only degraded since and the Ark reissues lack the photoetch screens.

And some Alan instruction sheets are vague and Eastern Express kits have nice decal sheets with absolutely no information on what they are.

Best left for nostalgia building, if anyone has nostalgia for Eastern European kits of the 1990s.

After I bought that SU76M as a Dragon re-box around 1999 I found refs that the Alan original supposedly represented a post-WW2/Korean version... maybe “representation” is too strong a word, “impression” is better. Putting it next to the excellent/accurate MiniArt kit (WW2 version) I built a few years ago was illuminating & trying to correct the former is strictly for masochists. Its only virtue is solidity - I tried to blow it up in one of my pyro dios in 2017 without success, it’s totally indestructible

The Su76 does not hold much interest for me but personally I like seeing reviews of old kits even if they have been surpassed by newer kits because it will allow me to judge if it is worth saving money buying an older kit rather than a new technology kit.

The kit is only good for building a completely wrecked SU-76!