Something I built: Revell's 1/72 T-72 M1

 Early last year, I finished a tiny tank: a East German T-72. 

Brief kit review - Revell Germany made this T-72, and they did their usual excellent job. Lots of detail and good engineering at a good price. The difficulty is up a bit compared to most 1/72 tank kits, though, so you should perhaps get a few other kits under your belt before attempting it. Most of this difficulty is because this kit has a lot of stuff mounted on the turret with only the most basic marks for mounting points. That, and the surprisingly intricate IR spotlight mounted next to the turret mean you will need some familiarity with the superglue. As usual with tiny tanks, I tried out a few weathering techniques. I think the green might be a bit too bright, but I wanted a 'sun-baked' fading and not all experiments work out and LEAVE ME ALONE I KNOW ITS NOT RIGHT (weeps)

(ahem)

I weathered the saddle tanks using the good 'ol hairspray technique, which I had never used before. The rest was light mud with masking solution done in patches to make it more uneven. Kinda regret not just leaving the thin coat of mud over everything, as the green-brown mix looks really good. Oh well. In scale modeling you learn by doing. Speaking of which, I managed to break the machine gun in two somehow; I patched it by cutting off the rest of the gun barrel and fabricating a new one with a bit of steel wire.

I like the T-72, not only because its one of the few models I've thus built with lots of relevence to the modern world, but also because it is a tank as envisioned by Wal-Mart. The USSR and Big Blue, with their vast economies of scale and obsession with efficiency, sometimes thought alike. Allow me to explain...

The USSR started to produce these tanks in the early '70s, and like the Hind gunship and the AK series assault rifle, the T-72 has gone on to be a staple in conflicts around the world. The world's most produced modern tank, (25,000 and counting) this bit of Soviet heavy metal is still produced in four different countries, and modified in many more; wikipedia has an article just dedicated to variants of the T-72. While the story of this tank is a little complected, the root of its success as a angry communist war-hog is not. 

In the mid-sixties, the Soviets made a revolutionary new tank called the T-64. At the time the world's best tank, it had a slew of new technologies that would eventually become universal, including the first use of composite armor, and a smooth-bore gun. It replaced heavy tanks on the battlefield, and was given to elite Red Guards divisions. But it was too expensive to be produced in the numbers the Soviets wanted. This was a serious drawback: communist war plans against NATO called for overwhelming numbers of tanks. There was also the problem that the T-64 couldn't given to allies, or sold to other nations, as the western powers were sure to get ahold of one. So, the USSR ordered it's engineers to design a new tank: it was to have the same gun and rough capabilities as the T-64, but be 'decontented' - essentially, built to a price. It was also had to be easy to mass produce, and easy to maintain -  the new tank was to replace the obsolete T-54/55 series. If the T-64 was the latest Mac device, this new tank was to be the stripped down version, sold at Wal-Mart at a third of the price. 

This design, of course, was the T-72. In keeping with Soviet tank philosophy, it was designed to be relatively small and light, both to make it easily transportable on standard flatcars and flatbeds, and to keep mobility in rough conditions. They accomplished this primarily by removing the fourth crew position, the loader, and replacing them with a auto-loading system. This made for significant weight savings, as the removal of a crew member meant that the crew compartment could be smaller, and thus took less armor to protect. This allowing the T-72 to weigh in at 41 tons, a lightweight among modern tanks. Then, the cheapening began: nearly every sub-system that was expensive and worked well in the T-64 was simplified in the T-72. The engine was replaced with a supercharged diesel that had powered Soviet tanks in World War 2. The suspension and the sensors were simplified. Even the controls for driving were changed, removing the power assist for the driver. Composite armor was used, but only in the critical front glacis and turret. 

This new robust design came together rather quickly, and in the early 70s, it entered series production. The T-72's appearance scared the crap out of NATO, as it was equal to the tanks it was fielding at the time, and being cranked out in massive numbers. In fact, the Soviets expanded production into the Warsaw pact, licensing the design to Poland and Romania. Making a few more simplifications, the tanks produced outside the USSR or earmarked for allied Warsaw Pact armies, were known as T-72 M1s. The major change, aside from the manufacturing location, was the inclusion of  thicker turret armor. This is the model I've built: a East German T-72 M1, somewhat worse for wear. When the USSR and the Warsaw pact had enough T-72s, they began selling them on the international arms market. The cheap tank became even cheaper, since now the tank factories were competing against each other (!) and thus there was a market incentive for greater quality and production efficiency (!!) Ironically arranged for capitalist success, the T-72 is to this day sold all over the world. The Syrian civil war and the Libyan uprising both featured the T-72. When during the Russian Revolution communist hardliners sent tanks to shell the Russian parliament, those tanks were T-72s. NATO, thanks to its many ex-Warsaw Pact members, fields a great number of T-72s. 

Crew comfort was far down the list when the T-72 was being designed, and being a crewman inside one is miserable, even by tank standards. Because of severe space limitations caused by the auto-loader, none of the crew has space to stand up when the hatches are shut; claustrophobics need not apply. A narrow tunnel only traversable on hands and knees connects the commander and the gunner in the turret with the driver up front. His controls, as mentioned, have no power assist, and when his hatch is closed he steers with a periscope, giving him a letter-slot view of the battlefield. The tank can fire while on the move, but only fire accurately with slow speeds over flat terrain. The tank also started with a early night vision system. Because 70's era night vision systems were lousy in both east and west, my T-72 has several infra-red spotlights to assist in seeing things. The big one is co-axally mounted with the main gun, and several other smaller lamps are sticking out of the turret. 

As the economy design, you won't be surprised that the T-72 has another flaw. Because the shell propellant and all the shells are all in the auto-loader's 'cassettes' beneath the turret, anything penetrating the cassettes has a very good chance of igniting the propellant, or setting off all the tank's ammunition at once. Both of these are spectacularly fatal to the T-72's crew, with the latter exploding with such force that often the entire many-ton turret is ripped off from hull entirely, landing many meters from the ex-tank. This happened many times during the gulf war – America had spent a lot of time and money researching better ways to kill tanks. That they were successful in this the Soviets found out in the early 80s, during the Isreali invasion of Lebanon An Isreali M60 was abandoned and captured by the Syrians, and then spirited  to the USSR. It was equipped with a new gun which could blow a hole through the T-72 at any angle. Stunned, the Soviets began equipping all their T-72s with bricks of ERA – explosive reactive armor. Of course, Iraqi T-72s didn't get this important upgrade – which lead to one of the most one-sided defeats in modern military history. (There's more to it than that, but western tanks could knock out Iraqi T-72s before those T-72s could even see the western tanks on their '70s era sensors. And that's surely a drag on morale.) 

Saddle tanks are not a dumb idea in combat; tanks by the modern era are hardened to withstand things an order of magnetude more nasty that exploding, burning fuel, so the risk is minimal compared to the increase in range.

Little round cylinders are grenade launchers, firing frag or smoke grenades, to give cover. Giant IR spotlight is the 8 track option of tanks: if it has one, you know its from the 70s.

Everything you need to know about Main Battle Tanks (MBTs.) Combine the ease of manufacture and mobility of medium tanks, combined with the armor and firepower of Heavy Tanks, and boom! MBTs.

The T-72 is basically a sled with tracks taking up the sides. The skirts on the top parts of the

 

 tracks are rubber. 

Getting ahead of myself slightly, but this IS-3 gives you an idea of the scale of a 1/72 tank.