I recently finished this East Germany NVA’s T-72M1 with full interior in 1:35th scale. The kit is manufacturered by Amusing Hobby. The kit comes with excellent fitness, excellent plastic molding, very good design, and very good details. Only a few parts need to be sanded and refitted. There are a lot of details and movable parts. With references pictures you can make this wonderful kit even better.
I made this kit for 5 months. I added some wires inside and outside of the tank, according to the reference pictures.
Although the kit is very well made, some details are missing because of to difficult to make or because of invisibility after the model is done. As a modeler, I feel it is not hurt to always add some details.
The welding seams and beads were neglected on the chassis, So I use stretched sprue to add them back to the model:
For the rod that control the open and close of front shovel, it should connect to the shovel with bolts and nuts. The model just come with a flush end. I use extra nuts from other model to this part:
This is the pre-heater of T-72. It warms up the disel fuel and provide warm air to the crew as well. The part in T-72 has very complex hose system, which the model doesn’t have. I use copper wires to add some of those hose back:
The same issue for rear fuel tank/charge rack as well. The fuel hose is missing in the kit. I add some of them back. The torsion bars in real T-72 are wrapped with metallic blue protective paper. So I paint them in metallic blue as well.
The turret is where I pay the most of attentions at. This section is commander’s post and part of his electric equipment. The one in green are some electric hub. Three small pieces underneath it from the left to right are: master with control panel, intercom/radio switch, and intercom control panel. In reality, black cables connected those three in complex pattern. I have them simplified here.
Gun breach is in. The 2 rounds of APFSDS were mounted on the ready rack. The dark green box to the right side of lift are thought to be another wire hub. I drill hols on top of it and inserted wires. The wires were pre-painted in black.
These are details of autoloader. The top cover of autoloader is also served as turret floor. A lot of loose ammunitions are placed on top of it for emergency use when autoloader is empty.
As a conclusion, this kit is among the best kits within amusing hobby, and comparable to other full-interior kits such as miniarts as well. The overall fitness is excellent. It has workable track links, the suspension can be adjust slightly to fit the landscape of diorama. They also have excellent design that the interior can be demonstrated. Currently there are no aftermarket upgrades for this model. The oversize is smaller than Tamiya and Trumpeter so the photo etch designed for them can not be used in this model
