When the T-54 first came into Production in 1946, the vehicle was subject to many upgrades during its production run. The biggest changes where found with Turret. During its run the turret went through 3 different incarnations to when it finally evolved into the classic Hemispherical shape that is found on the T-54B and T-55 MBTs.

This Modelpoint release is a replacement Turret for the Tamiya T-55 Kit to backdate it into a T-54-2 (Model 1949). It includes a finely casted replacement Turret with the characteristic undercut turret found on the T-54-2. The kit also includes a replacement 100mm Gun barrel with a replacement mantlet without the dust cover.

The Resin in the kit is casted very nicely without any air bubbles and only a small pour plug on the mantlet that can be easily removed with a razor saw. The Replacement D-10T gun is a beautifully turned piece of Aluminum. No directions are provided for assembly, but they suggest replacing the Tamiya T-55 kit wheels with Spiderweb Wheels found on early T-54s and replacing the Fuel tanks with the old style external tanks to properly model an early production vehicle. You can get around this by modeling a vehicle that has go though a rebuild, which is very common practice with Soviet vehicles.

Overall it’s a very nice kit and a welcome addition to the growing list of T-54/55 conversions out on the market now. Hopefully they’ll be more conversions for the T-55 coming from Modelpoint in the Future.

Kit courtesy of my Credit Card and the excellent service from www.modelpoint.us