East Germany (DDR) Volksarmee T-72M1, with full interior

How’s the fitting for those 3D parts? I found the PE for Tamiya T-72 are too large to fit on the AH ones.

That’s a masterpiece you’ve got there- beautiful detailing and painting!

Excellent build!

Regarding the pre-heater (with some “been there - done that” under my belt) I may add that the preheater was not intended to heat up the diesel fuel (f.e. ships are using a preheater for heavy fuel oil, i.e. Marine Fuel Oil, to enhance the flow capabilities). The preheater on russian tank designs is intended to warm up the engine oil as well as the cooling water to a certain degree to avoid damage due to non-lubricated bearings caused by still too stiff oil. Common regulation was to warm up the fluids to 70°C of the cooling water. Alarm routine allowed to shorten the procedure to 30°C. Of course (hey, it’s a russian tank) the T-72 featured a compressed air system to perfom a cold start of the engine within all wheater conditions. But it was strictly prohibitd to be used without explicitly order by superiors due to heavy strain and wear on the engine shortening the life cycle by a great margin.

Your camouflage colors are allright. Mostly the NVA green was much greener, but there was some variation due to wheatering as well as paint shortage. Shortage of everything was common in the East German armed forces. Black and gray are spot on. The grey patch is a bit on the large side. Regulations call for an overall coverage of secondary colors (i.e. the black and the light grey) of 20-27,5% each. They also shoud be painted at an agle of 30 to 60 degrees from the edges and never stop at an edge. So may I advise you to add some black at the vertical areas below the black patches? This would hit the nail.

Now my short rant is over. This is a very fine build, indeed!

Regards

  • dutik
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My method for painting wires and other small objects with a gap below them.
Painting the ignition wires on the engine.
I slide a paper or thin/soft sheet of plastic under the wire. This acts as masking
for the area under the wire. Paint the wire, let it dray and then pull out the paper.
Still needs some care when painting, don’t use a big brush and lots of paint,
but the risk of getting paint on the surface below is greatly reduced or even eliminated.

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Perfect fit

Great job, a very impressive build!

Very good suggestion and background information. Thanks a lot, especially for the paint part. I realize the paint was too yellowish after that. I use Russian 4BO as the main color, which from the book “T-80 Standard Tank, the Soviet Army Last Armored Champion” stated the most similar color used in T-80 in 1980’s. After that I realize the NVA may not use the same color as Russian. The existing vehicle in the museum, even with single green color, is more greenish than typical 4BO.

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I am curious about the blue torsion bar covers. How did you learn about that?
Ken

I missed this the first time around. Very nice. I hope mine turns out half as well.

Search the blog article of “Tankograd”. He wrote two detailed analysis articles of T-72 in technical aspects. There are many factory photos as well.
Basically, the metallic blue shining is the protective paper that wrap around the torsion bar case.

Where did you find this?
Ken
Nevermind, I found it. Awesome article, thanks!

Simply outstanding.

Since you asked: