T-55 "Enigma" - Tamiya 1/35

[Will Vale]

Hi folks,

I've been building and painting this over the last three weeks, and it's done! Or at least done for now, I'd like to revisit it with some minor stowage when I've painted the commander and made a little base for it.

T-55 "Enigma" - Tamiya 1/35

(Obligatory Flickr link)

The kit is excellent, it looks like the real one and was pretty easy to put together. I built it straight from the box as an antidote to the tricky aeroplane I finished before that.

The plastic barrel came out quite nicely, but the rubber band tracks are just "OK". I spent a while trying to get the right sag and I think it's close enough, but it would be nice if the lengths between the idler/sprocket and the ground at each end was straighter. It may be possible to take up some of the slack when I add some groundwork, so I haven't glued the bottom of the roadwheels to the track yet.

As usual I painted it with a Tamiya rattle can and weathered with brushes and sponges. I think an airbrush might be useful for filling in the smoke around the exhaust though - I added some pigments but they seem to have worn off already. A mist of dust over the tracks and road wheels might also help unify them a bit?

I tried to keep the look of an in-service tank, moderately well looked after. I've seen quite a few builds of this kit based on the state of the Bovington Enigma, but even that looks much tidier (from what I can see) in pictures of it just after it was captured than it does in the museum. Couldn't resist a bit of rust though :)

T-55 "Enigma" - Tamiya 1/35

T-55 "Enigma" - Tamiya 1/35

Lastly a few detail pics. The MG was done in a bit of a rush to get it ready for club night - I think it would have been better if I'd built and painted it with the rest of the tank, and hand-painted the gunmetal bits in after, lesson learned for next time.

T-55 "Enigma" - Tamiya 1/35

T-55 "Enigma" - Tamiya 1/35

T-55 "Enigma" - Tamiya 1/35

T-55 "Enigma" - Tamiya 1/35

There are a few more pics on Flickr.

I'd love to get some suggestions on this - I'm happy enough with it, especially as a quickie project, but it seems like there's something missing at the moment - it's a bit lifeless. I wonder if stowage and a figure would improve matters, or if there's something that needs fixing on the tank itself?

Thanks for looking!

Will

[Hunter Rose]

Nice Will! Love a bit of armor! I think you've hit the nail on the head yourself really, a bit of stowage would make it come to life more, although I think its perfectly good as is, and will look even better with the commander in place.

I find when it comes to tanks unless your going for the extreme heavy weathering route it is quite hard to give a tank a realistic in use finish with out it looking a little inconspicuos after all, thats how they are supposed to be!

Great build! 

[srmalloy]

If you wanted to get a better hang on the tracks, and were willing to go to the additional expense and effort, you could always replace the kit tracks with the Friulmodel ATL-01 T-54/55/60 working metal track set. You'd have 210 individual links and a wire to cut up into hinge rods that you'd have to assemble, and then you'd have to do the whole weathering of the tracks over again, but if you're unsatisfied enough with the kit tracks, that's one route to go. I'm not sure that you'd get much of an improvement over what you've already done, though.

I agree with Hunter that adding some stowage will make it look more 'lived in'; as it is, it looks a bit as if it just came out of depot maintenance and the crew hasn't picked it up yet.

[MZ3]

The Friul tracks will make a big difference but they are a major pain to put together. But they add great detail to any model. If you don't want to go that way, drybrush a steel/silver type of color on the outer parts of the tracks, the parts that would make contact with the ground. More dirt/dust, this tank was used in the dessert so it would be pretty dirty/dusty. Mig pigments or oil paints will work. Maybe an antenna, I'm not sure about that, I'm getting ready to build one of these and haven't done too much research on this model of T-55.

Other then those, it's really nice. I would like to see the other pics, but the link to you flickr doesn't seem to work for me.

edit- nevermind, now the link is working.

[Will Vale]

Thanks for the comments and tips! I did think about Friul tracks (or indeed Spade Ace ones) after seeing a demo at the club last month, but when I went looking for pictures all the real T-55s had a lot less sag than the metal tracks seemed to give - you get sort of catenary curves from the sprocket and idler but not much if any sag over the road wheels. That said, I think that the metal ones would still look better, especially around the sprocket and idler, but it would need some care to get it just right and might not be worth the effort.

If you don't want to go that way, drybrush a steel/silver type of color on the outer parts of the tracks, the parts that would make contact with the ground.

I opted not to paint bare metal on the tracks since I think it can be a bit cheesy, or at least it is when I do it, and used graphite instead. Which I totally failed to capture in the pictures because I didn't think about lighting very hard: this one from just before it was finished is better:

T-55 "Enigma" - Tamiya 1/35

More dirt/dust, this tank was used in the dessert so it would be pretty dirty/dusty. Mig pigments or oil paints will work. Maybe an antenna, I'm not sure about that,

I think you might be right about the antenna, the moulded part is a bit short on this one, I'm not sure what the normal fitting would be but drilling out the end and installing a bit of wire would be nice to do. I think I'll tweak the dustiness when I get the base done - I was thinking about showing it on a road with a concrete block centreline, so not too much sand but some road dust airbrushed over the running gear would probably help a good deal.

Thanks for pointing out the broken link too, now fixed.

Cheers,

Will

[MZ3]

One of the good things about the metal tracks is you have complete control over how much sag there is when using them. I have a T-62 that I used Friul tracks on and I was able to get an almost perfect sag on them. I actually used a picture from a book to adjust the tracks to exactly where I wanted them to be.

Painting steel on rubberband tracks is horrible. Most of the tracks I've seen on russian tanks have bare metal showing. But to get that look it seems almost impossible to do it with the kit tracks. I've tried everything I could think of and read about. It just doesn't look as good as it could. But, adding lot of dirt helps blend the steel in for a more nature look. Having stated that, I haven't used kit tracks for a long time and actually try to use Friul as often as possible. The best part about Friul track is after you get them painted or finish(I always use blacken it) you take a bit of sandpaper and lightly sand the contact points, get a really nice looking set of tracks very easily.

I looked online and this tank would have had a longer antenna, atleast that is what other model builders are doing. There don't seem to be any pictures of this thing in action. I think I remember reading this tank wasn't even confirmed to exist until the end of the first Iraq war, when they were actually found/captured. And all the references I have about this style tank only make one mention of it, and of course there are no pictures

[Will Vale]

I went back through my internet picture haul, and found two small pictures of Enigmas after being captured but still in Iraq. The Bovington tank (Calvin/Hobbes) has no antenna visible at all but the photo is from the wrong side so it's not possible to tell if it's broken or just short. The other one appears to have a full length antenna (yay!) but the pic is tiny.

Luckily I just found another picture of the same tank (based on damage to the add-on armour) which clearly shows an almost-full-length antenna:

http://s100.photobucket.com/albums/m34/ComradeAbdullah/?action=view&current=enigma_012.jpg

So that answers that one!