Today I am going to pontificate upon a conversion I am planning with my new T-34/ZP. The idea for this conversion came from the World of Tanks T-34-88 - a lovely little beasty that I run regularly!
There are several interpretations and accounts of various tanks (on all sides) using captured equipment in WWII. One of these is the account of T-34/85 sporting an 8.8cm gun from theTiger I. tanks-encyclopedia think this unlikely:
"The T-34/85 turret is hardly a likely candidate for holding such a long, heavy gun. It would probably cause the suspension serious problems – it is widely known that the attempts by the Soviet to fit a 100mm gun to the T-34/85 caused the suspension to buckle and break during firing. Secondly, there would have to be extensive and incredibly precise engineering in order to actually fit the huge gun in the T-34’s gun mount (and being able to give it any elevation or depression), something probably not available to any units outside of heavy factories of Germany. Thirdly, the gun itself was huge and complicated. In fact, the KwK 36 L/56 took up most of the internal space for the Tiger I turret. It is extremely unlikely that there would be internal space in a T-34/85 turret in which to accommodate such a large gun."
What ever the truth, It is very pretty, and in game terms would look good as a command tank in Bolt Action's Tank War supplement. To this end, when Warlord had their sale, I decided to buy a few bits!
The standard T-34/85 plastic kit (a thing of beauty!) comes with most of the parts needed including the hull, fuel tanks, storage box, turret and cupola seen on the T-34-88. The main changes will be the gun and the bustle. The gun had two main options; the Tiger 1 8.8cm (as in the story) or the smaller but similar looking PzIV gun from the PzIV H.
The Tiger I gun is larger (of course) and has three thicknesses, the Pz IV H gun has a similar muzzle break, but less of a step down.
The ammo box on the back of the turret of the T-34-88 is very similar to the Pz IV H turret box. HOWEVER, the other reason for buying the Pz IV is to force my good buddy Handro to make the PzV/IV aka Rammpanzer (hull of a panther with turret from a Pz IV). The ammo box is pretty vital for that plan!
The box on the T-34-88 could be made from scratch, and so I will try this before destroying Handro's Pz IV dreams!
I'll hopefully get this done this week and get some pictures up soon!
Der H
