Meng have sprung an April surprise on us by releasing their new
35th scale Main Battle tank – the mighty T-72 in 35th
scale. See what you think about the feature set and wether or not they are
joshing us in our preview…
Meng’s April I teaser –
the T-72 in 35th scale…
1/35th scale
Kit No# TS-028
Introducing plastic model kit and many more new features
along with the boxart in our product preview…
The real thing…
The T-72B3 is a development of the standard Russian-made
T-72B series currently in service in the Russian army. The T-72B3 has
significantly improved its combat characteristics with more fire power,
protection, mobility and command controllability. Besides the improved armor
and targeting systems, it kept all the good features of previous versions of
T-72. The modernized version of the T-72, which was a main second-generation
battle tank produced in the Soviet Union since the 1970s, is equipped with new
generation communications and firing systems and a ballistic data computer.
The
T-72B3 contract was performed by the Russian Defense Company
"Uralvagonzavod". A contract was signed in 2012 to launch the
modernization program for a total amount of six billion rubles ($150 million).
Currently, the Russian army has some 8.000 T-72s on various variants in its
arsenal (most of them in reserve). Russian Ministry of Defense has decided that
all of them will be converted to a t-72B3 standard. By the end of the 2013 some
270 units were delivered to the Western Military District. The T-72B3 is now
become the backbone of the Russian armor regiments until the new Armata MBT
will enter in service. President Vladimir Putin has allocated 23 trillion
rubles ($703 billion) to re equip the Russian army with modernized weapons over the next decade.
In case you don't like building tracks...
The Russian T-72B3 MBT, as an important complement of the
T-90 MBT, has received a series of modern improvements on the basis of the
T-72B tank. It’s installed with the new Sosna-U multi-channel sight, a modern
125mm 2A46M-5 smoothbore gun, a 7.62mm PKT coaxial machine gun and a 12.7mm
Utjos NSVT anti-aircraft machine gun. It’s fitted with the Kontakt-5 explosive
reactive armor for better protection. It also receives new double-pin tracks.
The T-72B3 tanks started service in 2012 and appeared in the Tank Biathlon and
the Ukraine conflict.
MENG want to express our gratitude to the Gur Khan Books
Publishing House and Mr. Alexey Khlopotov for their authoritative reference
materials. With such materials, they had the chance to present the accurate and
precise MENG TS-028 1/35 scale Russian Main Battle Tank T-72B3 plastic model
kit.
Now, let’s take a look at the proposed feature set.
You can find out more
about this release as more comes out from us here or the Meng Website…