T-72B vs T-72B, Battlefront beats Zvezda

 

Neat 1/100 scale kits of T-72B – Review by Nigel Brand

Recently I decided to expand my collection of Soviet tanks I use to play Team Yankee by designing a force around the T-72B tank which has become available in some TY lists. Battlefront itself makes a T-72B kit, which is based on its old T-72 kit, but I’m always keen to look at alternatives.

The T-72B was fielded from 1985, and represented a major upgrade of the basic T-72 which had entered service in 1974. The T-72B featured a new, more powerful gun, a stabilizer, improved sights and fire control, the capability of firing the 9K120 Svir guided missile, additional armour, a more powerful engine and in most models, Explosive Reactive Armour blocks.

The Zvezda kit is one of Zvezda’s HotWar series of snap kit polystyrene kits. The illustration on the cover is of a T-72B obr 1985g, which has a distinctive arrangement of the ERA blocks. Curiously, the kit inside is of the later 1989g model, with a completely different arrangement of ERA armour. In the latter, the ERA on the front glacis is concealed under a 16mm steel plate, not in visible single blocks. I’ve been bitten before by Zvezda’s rather sloppy attitude to product naming: its British Cruiser Tank Mk IV Crusader box shows a Cruiser tank Mk IV (A13 Mk II), which had four road wheels, while the Crusader, the later A15, had five roadwheels.

The Zvezda kit in crisply molded in a modern, softer polystyrene and has only 14 parts. The parts are very well crafted, with very little flash. The kit has an unusual structure, possibly due to the desire to have a snap-fit kit, but assembles easily enough. The upper hull and turret are essentially single pieces, whereas the lower hull comprises 12 pieces, including the unditching beam, external fuel tanks, the integrated roadwheels and track assemblies and the external side skirts. The kit can assemble quite happily as a snap fit but I chose to use polystyrene cement, concerned that completed models might disassemble if they were knocked or dropped.

A possible weakness is that the turret fits onto a plastic spigot on the hull.

The surface detailing is very fine, and, remarkably, includes detail on the bottom of the hull. The parts fit well and the rubber skirts can be clipped on, although I chose to glue mine. The roadwheels have the correct six spokes of the T-72B.

The turret is a single assembly, so there is no opportunity to add a machine gun or to have any of the hatches open to represent a platoon commander without tricky surgery.

The construction is robust. I accidentally dropped one of the completed models onto my wooden floor without any damage. The kit includes sufficient decals to outfit 10 kits in very basic markings and the kit includes a simple assembly guide in both English and Russian.

The Zvezda model is readily available via eBay. I bought four from Frontline Hobbies @ A$15.99 but Frontline is now out of stock and has advised that the supply of Zvezda kits is now uncertain.

The Battlefront T-72B model, part of its Team Yankee range, comes as a company of five for around A$75.50 from model shops such as MilSims and Frontline Hobbies (TSBX-29) as well as from Battlefront online.

The hull and turret represent the obr. 1985g model, with visible ERA blocks covering the front glacis, the turret and the hull sides, or the original T-72M model, with a different turret, plain glacis and plain rubber skirts.

The model comes in a relatively soft polystyrene and has a high level of surface detail. There was no flash. The base kit has 18 parts, with optional parts for mine ploughs, and alternative turrets and hull sides for either the earlier T-72M or the later T-72B. The model includes a heavy anti-aircraft machine gun (in fact, two thereof), and alternative open or closed commander’s cupola. It includes the distinctive grenade launchers on the left side of the turret (as well as the alternative eyebrow type smoke grenades for the T-72M).

All the parts fit well and the end result is a more than adequate representation of an early production T-72B tank. In researching the various models I note that the road wheels have eight spokes, rather than the correct six, but this is a minor quibble.

As with all Battlefront armoured fighting vehicles, you can connect the turret to the hull either with a plastic spigot or a pair of small magnets, not supplied.

I didn’t drop this one and the external fuel tanks and machine gun would be vulnerable, but polystyrene kits tend to be more resilient than resin and metal ones.

The kit includes half a dozen tank commanders in different poses and Team Yankee unit cards for a T-72 tank battalion and T-72 tank company, and the T-72B tank battalion and company. Battlefront provides an online tutorial to help with assembly, although perfectly adequate instructions are on the back of the box.

I successfully undertook some surgery on one of the Zvezda kits to incorporate on the open Battlefront cupolas. My attempts to separately incorporate the tiny base of the heavy machine gun from the spare battlefront cupolas was less successful.

These kits both make up into fine models. The Battlefront model is better designed for wargaming purposes, the price per unit is virtually the same, and is readily available, so, if you can get it the Battlefront model is superior.