Military Model Scene

I still remember first seeing one of these Egyptian conversions in the Open Days at the Budge Collection back in the 1980s.  It is a T-34, by then an aging tank which the Egyptians used to mount a modern Soviet 122mm D30 howitzer.  The hull was essentially unchanged while the turret simply had much of the turret roughly cut away to allow for space to fit the bigger gun mounting and allow for more space for the crew to serve the gun.  

Protection for the crew was provided in a very basic form, with new flat turret plates, creating a higher turret and a simple hatch in the roof.  These plates were thin when compared to the original turret armour.  Just a small element of the original turret remain eith er side of the new mantlet.  A fairly basic modification that didn't need complex armour manufacturing plant to complete. One important point of the conversion is that it retained the capability of the full 360 degree travers of the original turret.

There have been resin conversion sets of the turret available before, both for 1/72 and 1/35 models.  I've have built both before (a Black Dog 1/72 resin turret on a Dragon Models kit hull, and for 1/35, the Accurate Armour conversion, on a larger scale Dragon kit chassis.

With this new one from Rye Field Models you get the complete kit in plastic.

No internal detail for the hull, except the suspension spring housings, but the turret does have the complete detail of the D30 122mm gun mounting.  You have a choice to make for the style of roadwheels, and whatever your choice, you will have a spare set left to add to your spares box.  The track is done in a link and length style, just using the individual links to assemble the sections around the drive sprocket and the idler.

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I bought mine via Tiger Hobbies here in the UK.

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Robin