The T-64 was the Formula 1 of Soviet tanks in the late 1960s. It had the largest cannon mounted in a medium tank, and it was equipped with an auto-loader.
Trumpeter’s kit features a detailed hull and turret with posable hatches, and soft, gluable plastic to replicate canvas coverings for the cannon, mudflaps, and deflectors. A metal barrel is also included.
The suspension is made up of swing arms and shocks. A form is included to shape the mud scraper (part No. PE-A3).Pay attention to the road wheels so you don’t mix them up with the idler wheels; the difference is in the caps. The ’dozer blade can only sit in the stored position.
The tracks are link-and-length; be careful not to put them too close together, however, or they will wind up being too short for the run. Because of this, it was difficult to get a good fit.
The upper hull and engine deck are built up from several pieces. Instructions have you add most of the surface hardware for the hull front and turret ring. Be careful to add the correct splash deflector; there’s one in the box for an upgraded version, but it is not used. You’ll need to make a small modification for the engine deck on this version. The soft plastic deflectors glue in line with a soft wave in them; I used a paperclip to bend the photoetched-metal parts PE-B11 and PE-12. Otherwise, joining both the hull top and engine deck to the hull bottom went without a hitch.
The instructions don’t show how to add the hardware for the unditching beam; I checked my references to see how it should be mounted. Use parts PE-A4 on the top and PE-A5 on the bottom, and make sure you add the straps to the bottom set and prebend them. There are two outlines on the back plate, two on top, and two below that indicate where to glue the photoetched metal. The beam itself is soft plastic; I super glued it to the hardware, then super glued the straps to the top.
The turret can be built with or without the antiaircraft machine gun, so you’ll have to choose which to build. The 12.5mm machine gun and mount comprise many parts. There also is an option to have the gun elevated (Part J6) or level (Part J5). However, after fitting J6, the gun looks level. It has a plastic barrel, one with thermal wrap, and the other with a metal barrel (I chose the latter). I painted the machine gun Testors titanium before mounting it.
I painted with Vallejo Model Color Russian green, applied an umber wash, and weathered with Tamiya weathering pastels. The photos in T-64 and T-80, by Steve Zaloga (Concord, ISBN 978-962-361-031-5) illustrate how hard it is to model a definitive version; many modifications were made in the field or depot. The tank on the cover of the book shows by itself that upgrades are not uniform.
Markings are provided for five different vehicles, plus numbers. The decals went down fine over a gloss coat.
With nothing more than what’s in the box, Trumpeter’s model has a lot of detail. Overall, it was a smooth build that took me about 27 hours. I hope Trumpeter will bring out the other T-64 versions; some of the parts are already in this kit.
A version of this review appeared in the February 2013 FineScale Modeler.