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Osprey Publishing |
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Modelling The T-55 Main Battle Tank Osprey Modelling #20 |
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Reviewed By Mark Aldrich, #39295 |
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MSRP: $17.95 USD Every once in awhile, a book arrives that I just have to have. This is one of those books. There are three tanks that I try to get as much data on as I possibly can. These are of course the Sherman, and following in a close second and third are the T-34 and T-55. Over the years, my modeling interests have veered to modeling vehicles that were involved in the Middle East Wars. You can have your Abrams, Challengers, Merkavas, and T-72’s. I personally prefer the older vehicles and conversions that were made from these vehicles. I wanted this book mainly to see what different modelers had done with the venerable T-55 and maybe its variants. I was not disappointed, just slightly let down. I will explain. I was hoping that the modelers would use some of the older ESCI and Trumpeter kits in their build construction. This was not the case, as all the 1/35 models used the excellent Tamiya kit. Nonetheless, this is another superb Osprey offering and anyone with a love of the T-55 or the desire to see the works of some really great model builders will want to add this book to their shelves. This 80 page tome is soft bound and filled with color photographs. It is printed on hard stock glossy paper and well organized. The book is broken down into an intro, tools and materials, five model chapters, research data, kits and accessories, index, and a one page color chip chart. The model chapters start with a 1/35 T-55AM2B Tamiya/CMK conversion by Graeme Davidson. We then move on to a knocked out 1/35 Type 69-II Tamiya/Trumpeter conversion by Sam Dwyer. Next in line is a 1/72 T-55A PST/Ace conglomeration of the Northern Alliance Forces in Afghanistan by Nicola Cortese. We finally end with a 1/35 Bosnian T-55/M-18 Hellcat Hybrid, which of course is a Tamiya/AFV Club Hybrid as well, built by Nicola Cortese. There are also four photo-page reviews of Modeler Pat Johnston and 1/35 examples of a T-54-2 of the Syrian Army in 1970 and T-55A of the Russian Army in Afghanistan. These review builds seem to use a lot more “plain old styrene” than I had expected. The T-55/M-18 hybrid is at least 89% plastic and just incredible to view. The 1/72 kit will blow your mind. That scale is too small for me; I can’t imagine doing the amount of detailing that was involved in the kit. All in all this is a great book to add to your model building reference library. |
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