Thursday 23 January 2014

The "Tank" that scared me as a kid: T34 (Airfix classic 1/72 T34/76 and T34/85)

The assault on the unmade kit boxes continues. From "box 3" I present an Airfix T34 tank:

As a kid I didn't get my hands on one of these until my mid-teens. For some reason they never seemed to be in my model shop or I was plain unlucky and always last in the queue. 

For a mold that dates back to 1968 it is not bad at all, in fact very good. In fact the 85mm gun version (see below) is IMHO nicely to scale and is my 'preferred' model. 

So yes as a little 'present' to myself I got one, just for old times sake ;)


The best thing about the Airfix kit was that you got two tanks in one, the early war 76mm version to terrorize the Barbarossa Germans (see below):


Why did it scare me? Well it was because of a certain war comic called "Battle" that had an eastern front strip about a German tank commander. 

The Germans always got beaten up by the T34's with their low velocity PzIV 75mm's (aka my Airfix Pz IV's would be no natch for it). The German tanks were always getting stuck in the snow and became sitting ducks to Ivan.

The T34 was also far better than anything the western allies had at the time too and it seemed just "too good".  It didn't seem fair as they had hoards of them running over poor hapless German infantry. 

The only thing that could stop them was a German 88mm gun (aka from the classic Airfix flak kit) but unless it was in a Tiger it wasn't going to last long

7 comments:

Al said...

Yep, classic!

Service Ration Distribution (Hobby) said...

Gotta have plenty T34's. Airfix kit still has 'it' even with newer stuff coming along.

Stryker said...

One of my school friends had about a dozen of these (around 1970!) and they scared me too - I only had 3 Stug assault guns and 1 PzIV!!!

Duc de Gobin said...

One of the better airfix kits I seem to remember (though I haven't got the patience for 'em anymore). Looks really good in those pics. Nicely done.

..and of course, quantity has a quality all its own....err yeah

Paul Foster said...

Nothing better than a T34!

I liked the Matchbox one better purely for the extras like the AA HMG, running man and the diorama.

Duc de Gobin said...

Yeah - now you mention the Matchbox one, it was a nice kit (though without the extra 85mm turret with Airfix bonus). I seem to remember little wall corners too. If you bought enough T34s, you could make a 'ruin' (of sorts). Now those were the days of proper wargaming - cannibalising sundry kits for parts for your bits box. *sigh* memories.

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

The AAMG was the "coolest" bit to be sure ;)

Definitely useful for the "command" tank