T-55 MAIN BATTLE TANK (Trumpeter)

This is a T-55 main battle tank in Soviet Army service as built in the mid-production years by the Kharkiv Locomotive Factory Харьковский Локомотивный Завод (ХПЗ KhPZ), and the UralVagonZavod УралВагонЗавод ( УВЗ UVZ). The tank was designed by the Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau Харківське Конструкторське Бюро з Машинобудування ім. О.О. Морозова (ХКБМ KhKBM), and the Kartsev-Venediktov Design Bureau Конструкторское бюро Карцева-Венедиктова (OKB-520 ОКБ-520).

This was arguably the finest and most durable tank to emerge from WWII/Great Patriotic War. Several western tanks and anti-tank weapons were designed specifically to combat the T-54/T-55. Thousands of these tanks remain in service around the world.

As the T-54 and T-55 are directly (intimately) related, they are usually referred to as the combination name T-54/T-55 due to their superficial characteristics being so similar. Over 90 000 were built between 1946 and 1981, with the vast bulk coming from Ukraine SSR and Russian SSR. Several thousand were also manufactured in Poland (1956-1979), and Czechoslovakia (1957-1983). The T-54/T-55 was extensively exported, and became the most widely used tank in history, and remains in service with at least 50 countries, and has been retired from at least 30 more. Thus it is the most produced and longest production run tank in history.

The model is a Trumpeter kit of an Israeli army Tiran Ti-67 tank (#MM00339) which was a rebuild of the T-54/T-55 tanks captured from the Egyptian army and re-engineered for desert warfare. I removed all the upgrades and Israeli features to return the model to the way the T-55 would have looked in about 1966 when it formed the bulk of the Soviet Army armoured forces. The tank is named Kолхозник (Kolkhozhnik), or Collective Farm Worker, and this name appears on the rear of the turret.

Paint is all Vallejo greens, washes and powders. Decals, brief as they are, are from another armoured vehicle. The only problem with the kit was that the rubber tracks were badly warped and bent, and nothing I did fixed the kinks. In the end I positioned the tracks in such as way as to be able to glue the worst kink to the road wheel and hide the bend. I had to cut off the large infra-red covered lamp and reposition it to match the angle of the main gun. I added a wooden log and metal straps on the rear plate, and a wound metal wire tow cable on the bow plate.

This was an educational Covid-19 project which had previously stalled all spring due to worsening medical conditions.

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966
Kолхозник, or Collective Farm Worker.

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

T-55 main battle tank, Soviet Army, c. 1966

In the zavod (factory)

T-55 tank in the ХПЗ KhPZ factory, which just so happens to be in my spare bathroom.

T-55 tank in the ХПЗ KhPZ factory, which just so happens to be in my spare bathroom.

T-55 tank in the ХПЗ KhPZ factory, which just so happens to be in my spare bathroom.

                                    

MOST KNOWN WARS USING T-54/T-55 TANKS

1955–1975: USA war against Vietnam (S.R. of Vietnam)

1956: USSR suppression of Hungarian uprising against Stalinism (USSR)

1961–1991: Iraq–Kurdistan conflict (Iraq and Peshmerga)

1966–1990: South African Border War (Angola)

1967: Six-Day War (Egypt and Syria)

1968: Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia (USSR and Poland)

1970: Black September (Syria)

1971: Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 (India)

1973: Yom Kippur War (Egypt and Syria)

1974–1991: Ethiopian Civil War (Ethiopia)

1975–1990: Lebanese Civil War (Lebanese army and militias)

1975–1991: Western Sahara War (Morocco and Polisario)

1975–2002: Angolan Civil War (Angola and UNITA)

1977–1978: Ogaden War (Ethiopia, Somalia and Cuba)

1978–1987: Chadian–Libyan conflict (Libya)

1986–1987: Toyota War (Libya)

1978: Uganda–Tanzania War (Uganda and Libya)

1978–1989: Cambodian–Vietnamese War (S.R. of Vietnam)

1979–1988: USSR invasion and war in Afghanistan (Afghanistan and USSR)

1979: Rhodesian Bush War (Rhodesia)

1980–1988: Iran–Iraq Gulf War I (Iran and Iraq)

1982–1983: 1982 Lebanon War (Syria and PLO)

1983-2009: Sri Lankan Civil War (Sri Lankan army and LTTE)

1983-2005: Second Sudanese Civil War (Sudanese army and SPLA)

1989: Romanian uprising against Nicolae Ceausescu (Romania)

1988–1993: Georgian Civil War (all sides)

1991–1992: 1991–1992 South Ossetia War (Georgia)

1992–1993: War in Abkhazia (1992–1993) (Georgia and Abkhazia)

1990–1991: Gulf War II (Iraq)

1991–present: Somali Civil War

1991–1995: Yugoslav Wars (Yugoslavia)

1991: Ten-Day War (Yugoslavia)

1991–1995: Croatian War of Independence (Yugoslavia, Croatia and Republic of Serbian Krajina)

1991–1995: Bosnian War (Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska)

1994: Yemeni Civil War (all sides)

1997: 1997 clashes in Cambodia (Cambodian army)

1998–1999: Kosovo War (Army of Yugoslavia)

1998–2000: Eritrean–Ethiopian War (Eritrea and Ethiopia)

1998: Guinea-Bissau Civil War (government forces)

2001–present: War in Afghanistan (2001–present) (Northern alliance and Afghanistan)

2003–present: War in Darfur (Sudanese army)

2003–2011: USA war against Iraq (Iraqi army and militia forces)

2003: USA invasion of Iraq (Iraq)

2005-2010: Chadian Civil War (2005–2010) (Chadian army)

2008: Russo-Georgian War (Abkhazia and South Ossetia)

2011: Libyan Civil War (2011) (Gaddafi Government)

2011–present: Syrian Civil War (Syrian army, ISIL and Rebels)

2011–present: Sudanese conflict in South Kordofan and Blue Nile (Sudanese army)

2012-2013: M23 rebellion (Democratic Republic of Congo and March 23 Movement)

2014-2017: Iraqi Civil War (2014–2017) (Iraqi army, Peshmerga and ISIL)

2014–present: Libyan Civil War (2014) (Libyan National Army and Government of National Accord)

2015–present: Yemeni Civil War (2015–present) (Hadi-government forces and Houthis)

2020: 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict (Azerbaijani Land Forces)

2020-present: Tigray War (Ethiopian army)