I have not been able to find any models of Christie's orginal tanks that he made for the US Army. What Russian tanks come the closest to his orginals that could be converted. What references are there for his vehicles to make those conversions?

The Zvezda/Italeri BT-5 and BT-7 kits by Eastern Express are the closest cousins to the US Christie tanks. Once upon a time, Commander Series Models (#2-067) did a conversion for the BT-5 to make the American T3 Christie tank.

Steve Zaloga sent me a copy of an article he wrote about converting one of the BT kits into a T3 tank.

I have one of these conversions. A friend of mine also had one and built it. He was less than impressed as he had to rebuild an awful lot of the Commanders kit to get major items correct. If you find one of the conversions, expect to do a lot of work to get it right, so don't pay a lot of money for it.

Caveat emptor.

Paul

The Zvezda BT-5 is the closest, as the BT-7 had a different track link with a shorter pitch (the links on the early Christies were nearly square, but these later versions were more rectangular). The drive wheel was also reviced to accommodtae the altered track. Zvezda's hull is slightly too long, but you can cut it at a prominent joint in the hull side. You can use the wheels as is, so long as you add a cover disk from sheet styrene.

UM has a T# in 1/72

Maquette has a BT-2, that's the closest.

If you are still interested, there is a commanders conversion on Ebay at the moment. It is packaged with two other conversions. At the moment the price is about $17