Finnish T-34/85 - déjà vu...Again!

Having reactivated my T-34/85 work for my Finnish I thought this was going to be an easy and quick project. After all, I had already started a Finnish T-34/85 model using the PSC 'quick build' kit...But therein lay the dirty big spanner in the works...

Can you get a plastic spanner? If you could, then I bet it would look like
the PSC's T-34/85 tank!

I already knew - after just a cursory glance - that this model was not the best. There were a few problems, some of which were due to my amateur modelling, but some down to PSC's design. Not a good start, but I was willing to overlook or work around some of these issues until I decided to revisit my original blog posts about this PSC kit and some of the other 'quick build' T-34/85s that I had looked at...

Link to my original 2011 T-34 post: 'Four T-34 'quick build' models compared'

Long story short(ish) - I had originally concluded that the Pegasus T-34/85 was the best of the 'quick build' '85 kits around, much better that either the Armourfast or the PSC '85s. So I went through my draws and pulled out the Pegasus '85 and guess what? Yep, it's definitely the better model!

The Pegasus 'easy build' T-34/85, a cheap and cheerful gem!

It turns out that at some point I had already rectified what I thought was one of the major failings with the Pegasus '85 kit and had replaced their weedy plastic 85mm gun with a nicely turned aluminum one. This kit is now a very nice representation of the Soviet medium tank without resorting to a more expensive 'display quality' kit (you get two of these war game quality Pegasus tanks for £8.99).

I should say that having looked at the PSC '85 again after so long it's failings seems to be immediately apparent to me, perhaps because of fresh eyes. The most obvious fault being that it seemed slightly over-scaled compared the other two T-34/85 models I have - I am sure if I measured it I would find that it is indeed to big.

...Arse biscuits!

What this means is this isn't going to be the quick job I thought it was going to be and I will now have to start my Finnish '85 project again with the Pegasus T-34/85. 

Postscript: When I first did my 'easy build' T-34 comparison reviews I eventually concluded that while the Pegasus T-34/85 was the best of the '85 kits that I would chose Armourfast if I wanted the earlier T-34/76 model (Pegasus didn't make this version). However, fast forward to now - Pegasus now make a 34/76 and if they have done as good a job with their '76 as they did with their '85 then I think they have the easy build T-34 market sewn up (they just need to do a T-34/76 m1943 now to nail it)!