short feature article - scale modelling now · the 85 mm zis gun of the t-34/85 greatly increased...

© www.scalemodellingnow.com 2013

Short Feature Article

Trumpeter

T-34/85

1:16 scale

by

Dave Smith

(January 2013)

(37 photos, 26 A4 pages, 930 words)


A note from Geoff...

I hope that you like this great T-34 sent in by Dave Smith – some really interesting and

realistic effects included here. This was destined for your Subscribers’ Gallery but as there

are a good number of photos I want to include them all and so the best way I feel is to give

this to you in a short Feature Article format. There aren’t many words because, as I say, this

was destined for your SG bur Dave gives you enough to see what he’s done and that’s great

– thanks Dave. Hope you like it as much as I do! Geoff

Hi Geoff,

I suppose that I should have explained a few of the shots really, I was rushed 'cause my tea

was ready!! This is the BIG one again – 1:16 scale and it’s been good to have another go at a

large scale project after my Tamiya Tiger I in 1:25 scale some while back.


Most of the shots speak for themselves, but a few don't so here are some notes to help all

your readers...


...show how good the Warhammer textured paint 'Stirland mud' is over a wash of 'Devlan

Mud'.


...the rust effect on the exhaust in this photo is home grown


...the injector pipes on the top of the engine seen here were added, and the cables in the

turret were added, as the boxes looked a little 'disconnected'.


The white paint in these shots was stippled on, using the brush in the shot, then weathered

and burnished, before the rubble was added, the big bits being glued on individually.


The shot here shows a repair done to one of the axles after a mishap, (it’s quite heavy!)

using a panel pin.

...and this one shows some dial faces that I drew as none are included. They are about

2.5mm diameter.

The fording logs were added, after I saw them growing in the grounds of my workplace, they

looked so good to scale!


Other than the paints stated, there is a 1:16 resin jerry can on the left hand side, a couple of

pieces of small gauge chain holding the fording log, a piece of guitar wire for the aerial, and

a small amount of Hanley bus station car park rubble, which is being dug up!!


These two shots show a lot of small items ready to be sprayed, held by double sided foam

tape. Fabulous stuff that holds by the smallest contact area, and grips like a vice!

Finally, the grass effect on the underside is Tamiya, and looks great.

The kit contains everything else required really.

Hope that you like it?

Dave S

PS - I will be working on the figure and a base soon, but don't really have a context yet other

than the monotone look of the tank against the rubble on the base. DS

Here are some other photos taken during construction...


Here’s a little bit of background to the T-34/85 and combat assessment *

As the war went on, the T-34 gradually lost the innovative design advantages it had at the

beginning of the German invasion in 1941. As the war progressed it had become an

increasingly easy target for the more powerful 75mm and 88mm armed tanks; weapons

could even pierce the turret relatively easily. It should be noted that the turret armour,

which was cast, was softer than that of the other parts of the tank and it offered poor

resistance even to the 37 mm shells of automatic AA guns.

The 85 mm ZiS gun of the T-34/85 greatly increased firepower over the previous 76.2 mm F-

34 cannon on the T-34/76. The length of the 85 mm gun barrel (4.645 meters) made it

necessary to be careful not to dig it into the ground on bumpy roads or in combat; A.K.

Rodkin commented: "the tank could have dug the ground with it in the smallest ditch. If you

fired it after that, the barrel would open up at the end like the petals of a flower."

At the start of the war, T-34s were about four percent of the Soviet tank arsenal, but by the

end it comprised at least 55% of tank production (based on figures from; Zheltov 2001 lists

even larger numbers). By the time the T-34 had replaced older models and became available

in greater numbers, newer German tanks, including the improved Panzer V "Panther",

outperformed it. The T-34-85 tank initially cost about 30 percent more to produce than a

Model 1943, at 164,000 rubles; by 1945 this had reduced to 142,000 rubles. During the

course of the Great Patriotic War the cost of a T-34 tank reduced by almost half, from

270,000 rubles in 1941, while in the meantime its top speed remained about the same, and

its main gun's armour-penetration and turret frontal-armour thickness both nearly doubled.

During the last years of the war the Soviets 'improving tactics were still inferior to the

Germans', but the Red Army's growing operational and strategic skill and its larger inventory

of tanks helped bring the loss ratios down. The T-34/85 in early 1944 did give the Red Army

a tank with a better gun and turret, while its armour and mobility were arguably better than

German Panzer IV and Sturmgeschütz III it could not match the Panther's armour or its 7.5

cm KwK 42 gun. To the Soviet advantage there were far fewer Panthers than T-34s or

German AFVs in general.

* Source Wikipedia

short feature article - scale modelling now · the 85 mm zis gun of the t-34/85 greatly increased...

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