Patience.

Hi Jacques, First point noted and it's a fair comment you make re our Asia based fellow modellers. If that's where Legends see their market - fair enough. Re the actual conversion set itself, the A.A. set is also designed for the Tamiya as well so the other comment is a bit lost on me? Irrespective, doubtless we will see some head to head comparisons in due course. Cheers! Gary

Gary - Sorry, the Legend for the Tamiya kit remark was meant for Scott's comment right above mine.

This is somewhat important, so your replies are needed: I know there was a dude on ML hard at work on a Type 59. Whether it has PE or not I don't recall, but my gut feeling is that it did not. How much of an interest is there in a Tamiya based Type 59, complete with PE?

Hi Robert! VERY much interested in such a conversion! Best regards, Andreas

Ditto here 18 Bravo - I would be interested in one or two of those..... I just wish Legends (Or anyone for that matter) would make the smaller things for the Tamiya T-55 like a Polish/Czech engine deck, FCS, ERA, BDD set, or I'll be forced to master my own and send them to Jeff at TMD...... Chris

Hi Maybe Rob was reffering to the type 69 conversion?....that i Mastered a while back and for a time was available from Airedale castings. This has now been sold to Verlinden, who hopefully will tweak certain parts such as the headlamp covers and boom sheilds. Other parts [Masters] that Graham has that i have made are T-54 Spiderweb wheels T-55 Starfish with missing centercaps and detailed hubs T-55 Sprocket to carry the RmSh track used on upgraded tanks T-54 Model 49m Turret with early barrel with counterweight. In time i will have the other bits such as Engine deck and radiator cover etc to enable a more comprehensive conversion of the 49m. Regards Andy

Don't forget a drop in engine deck with WADING RAILS needed for most Russian build T-55. That's no. 1 on my T-55 wish list. Regarding the Type 59 I'm not sure. I think good quality/reasonable priced/good researched conversions of "ordinary" T-54/55 variants is higher on my list. Cheers, /E

To me, ANY addition of another version of a kit is a good thing. Competition is what keeps manufacturers on their toes. Imagine if we all settled for the Tamiya Half Track series... I'm sure the AA version is quite nice. In fact, I'd probably have purchased one had I not known that the Legend one was going to be available. I've built lots of their stuff and never been disappointed. Verlinden? No thanks. Haven't seen the Cromwell offering, but there is this one. I have no idea who made it. The side armor didn't have the correct "steps" in them. Other than that, considering it was designed for a badly proportioned kit, not too bad. No PE though... No need to wonder any more. Rather than speculate, I decided to check for myself. The rear counterweight support arms have the correct contour to fit the Esci kit as you can see here: Likewise the turret armor: The glacis armor will fit on the Esci kit as well. I compared it to the kit, and while a few hundredths of an inch (yes, I used calipers) narrower than whatever one of have on there, the pieces fit quite well: Which leaves the fender supports for the side armor blocks. I cleaned one off, and fit it onto the Esci kit. It works, albeit with SLIGHTLY more of an overhang. These supports require that you cut out the Tamiya fenders to add them. No big deal. Do the same with the Esci kit. Then you won't have to worry as much about removing the incorrectly spaced fender braces. Note in earlier photo that it was necessary to do so to get leftover Tamiya fuel cells to fit. It's a shame the gorilla welds don't show up in the photos, but they're very well done, meaning they accurately portray the pretty horrendous welds on the real vehicle. So, to answer your question, yes, it'll fit the Esci kit. And for fun, I checked it against the Trumpeter kit. For those on a budget, it'll work equally well. There are no photos as holding the pieces together with one hand and photographing them with another requires more patience than i have this morning.