Unboxing: Bolt Action T34/76 Plastic Tank Set
May 27, 2015 by dignity
Justin and John unbox an influential and innovative tank design in the form of the Soviet Army's T34/76 Medium Tank Plastic Boxed Set for Warlord Games' Bolt Action.
Over 84,000 have been made and saw action in the Eastern Front, giving grief to opposing forces. This kit contains one tank that can be assembled as either the 1942, 42 or 43 design with each having a distinct turret.
1942, 1942 or 1943, which is your choice?
Warlords T34/76 is a fantastic little kit, mine ended up being a captured vehicle for my Germans. The turrets give some very cool options with the model too, being plastic makes conversion easy. Here’s mine! http://www.warlordgames.com/hobby-andy-singletons-beutepanzer-panzerkampfwagen-t-34/
IMO the kit is a bit of a disappointment . Early 41/42 tanks should have the dish or all steel style road wheels . The ones supplied , a holdover from the 85 kit , came out in 1943 . Also , it would have been nice to have the round fuel drums in the kit , as they were used from 42 and were seen more often than the square ones . But the biggest problem IMO is the stamped Uralmash (UTMZ factory ) turret . It is the wrong shape, being too short and stubby as compared to… Read more »
I always thought that the soviet main battle tank prior to the T34 was the T26, supported by the BT……is this not correct?
Have always loved the T34/85
There were quite a few different versions of he T34 from about 1940 onwards
No doubt a nice kit. I went for the 42 version.
However, in the meantime I’ve bought a Rubicon T-34/76 as well and I now can’t decide which I like more.
Both have pros and cons..
Anyways, it’s great to have choice and we’re lucky to have all those fine 1:56 plastic kits!
@suetoniuspaullinus I’m very interested to know what the pros and cons of each are!
Awesome unboxing, and great historical detail. Normandy, Bulge, Market Garden, are all great, but my first love for history and wargaming is always the East. I actually never knew that about the T-34’s “untoothed, sprocket-less” drive wheels, though. 🙂 John can “wax lyrical” all he wants when it comes to stuff like this, IMHO. I was curious, does this kit come with different LENGTHS for the 76mm gun? The **really** early 1940-model T-34/76a and b had a shorter, L/30 gun (the L11, I think). The T-34/76c onward had the longer L/43 length (F-34) gun (which is like 95% of the… Read more »
Nice kit – I have a T34/85 from Warlord already and they are idiot proof (allegedly).
a nice simple looking model to make with a choice of turret’s to make.
No short L-11 gun supplied in kit .( would need early style drivers hatch as well ) No T-34 tank of any type had a turret basket . Just 9 ready rounds on the hull walls for the 76 mm gun or 15 rounds in bustle / 4 rounds on turret wall by loader in the 85 . The rest of the ammo was in 8 or 9 bins on the hull floor , usually covered by a rubber non skid mat .
“Turret basket?” Not familiar with that term. So when we say that NO T-34 had a turret basket, we’re saying the fighting compartment did NEVER rotated with turret? I honestly don’t know. I’m just going by what the Russian tank vets are writing. Now that you mention it, I don’t remember them ever commenting “hey, it sure was great when our fighting compartment finally rotated with the tank.” 🙂
Most tanks had a half or full basket or floor attached to the turret ( Tiger , Sherman , Panzer IV , most modern tanks ) . Others had none , they were open to the floor , with crew seats attached to the turret ring . ( T-34 , M13/40 , Panzer II and Hotchkiss H-35 ) . Much more simple to build having only a connection for power to rotate the turret . No turret basket meant the crew could communicate easier ( usually by the commander / gunner kicking the driver’s back to give directions ! )… Read more »