T-34-85 - Maquette's No. 3502

Appearance on the eastern front battlefields new German PzKpfw VI Tiger and PzKpfw V Panther tanks forced Russian designers to find the way to increase the firepower of Soviet main battle tanks - the T-34. This was even more urgent in the view of the advance operations planned by headquarters in 1944. The problem of fitting the T-34 with a new and more powerful gun was by no means easy - increased dimensions of the weapon required completely re-designed turret. An attempt to install more powerful 85 mm gun into the old T-34 turret was not successful - test of such vehicles on the fire range in summer 1943 showed unsatisfactory results. The new turret was developed at the design bureau of production plant 112 at the end of 1943. The first serial T-34-85 was fitted with the D-5T 85 mm gun, then purposely designed ZiS-S-53 gun was installed. In January 1944 T-34 serial production was launched also on the 183th production plant - the tanks produced here differed from 112th production plant machines by another turret shape, road wheels, and other minor variations.

Till the end of WWII the T-34 design continued to improve. The vehicles produced by the 112th plant received reshaped turret, the edge between front glacis plate and the hull buttom became sharper. Such machines were fielded during the last months of the war and this version is depicted in this kit (variant A in assembly instruction). In 1946 the T-34 was upgraded again - an additional headlight and toolbox appeared on the hull while front edge became even more sharp, this version being depicted by variant B in assembly instruction.

At the end of 40s the decision was made by the Polish government to produce the T-34-85 in Poland. The technological documentation and drawings were delivered by 112th production plant so that the Polish T-34s were similar in appearance to vehicles produced there. Most of the T-34s were painted standard Soviet olive green color. The T-34 combat career not ended on the WWII battlefields - tanks of this type took part in Korea, Vietnam, Middle East conflicts. This tanks defended the Cuban coast, advanced in Somalia and recently took part in civil war in Yugoslavia.

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