History

This is a review of the SBS T-72 M early turret, for the Tamiya T-72 M1 kit. As such, the model requires the Tamiya kit for almost all parts needed in this build (aside from the basic turret itself).

Kit

This box contains 11 resin cast parts, a sheet of decals, 55 separate photo-etched parts, as well as a printed outline of where all the P-E should go’

Though I have a limited amount of experience with PE and resin, I volunteered to undertake this review because I have acquired a ‘taste’ for the Soviet bloc armor and thought this would help expand my modeling knowledge and enjoyment. On second thought, my ambitions may have exceeded my grasp of the undertaking at hand.

Eduard’s partnership with fellow Czech company HGW continues with their release of these pre-cut printed fabric seat belts. The belts themselves are made from very thin, elastic like fabric onto which the details and colors are printed. The belts are printed in the standard Luftwaffe light tan for this set, with the late war Orlon green available in a separate set.

The hardware is typical Eduard, rendered beautifully and precisely. Three types of mounting brackets are included for the shoulder harnesses, so check your references to the type used specific to your model.

Assembly is straight forward, if not a tad fiddly. The belts re very thin, and thread well through the photo-etched buckles and parts. As noted in other reviews here, they work best if you do not crumple them up before threading them as the instructions states.

Thank you to MRC and Gallery Models for providing another example of an iconic USN helicopter, this time in the distinctive Operation Deep Freeze color scheme. The kit was a very pleasant and enjoyable build. Thank you also to the IPMS Reviewer Corps staff members who do the hard work behind the scenes, getting us kits to review and publishing our work.

This kit is the latest in a series of H-34 variants by Gallery. Excellent reviews of the H-34 Choctaw (by William Nichols), the H-34 U. S. Navy Rescue version (by Rod Lees), and the HH-34J (by Dave Morrissette) may be found on the IPMS site. I suggest consulting these reviews as there are many great ideas and suggestions that are pertinent to the UH-34D reviewed here. All three of these reviewers found items I would’ve missed.

What you get in the package is a full gear replacement in white metal for both main gear legs and the tail gear. In many cases SAC will assemble some of the kit parts prior to casting. In this case the replacement parts number is the same as the kit parts. They have cleaned up the gear and filled any imperfections that were present on the original plastic parts. They also have enhanced the level of detail on the gear well above that of the plastic parts

The gear in the kit consists of five plastic parts. The metal replacement parts make up five pieces, two for each main gear and a single piece for the tail gear.

Detail is crisper on the metal gear than on the kit’s plastic parts. One can also tell from the photos that the SAC gear is much beefier, especially on the main gear retraction arms. The replacement parts are a drop fit with no issues what so ever. The overall appearance of the replacement gear is vastly superior to the kit parts.

Background

The 10.5cm SK C/32 (SK - Schnelladekanone (quick loading cannon) C - Construktionsjahr (year of design) was a German naval gun used in World War II. This was the standard unshielded low-angle deck gun mounted forward of the conning tower in Type I, Type IX and Type X U-boats. The guns were also used in shielded high-angle mountings aboard type 35 and type 43 minesweepers, Elbing class torpedo boats, cruiser Emden, and old battleships Schlesien and Schleswig-Holstein. The LC/32 mounting used in Type I and early Type IX U-boats weighed about 5 tons and could be elevated from -10° to +35°. Later Type IX and Type XB U-boats used the LC/36 mounting reducing weight by 10 percent by restricting elevation from -10° to +30°. During the early war years, these guns were used to encourage surrender of independently routed merchant ships or to sink ships damaged by torpedoes. The rate of fire with a good crew was 15 to 18 rounds per minute.