PT91 ERAWA

Modelkrak reference 35501


This review is an in-box one.

This resin kit intends to convert the Tamiya T72 into a Polish army early PT91. It comprises 42 yellow resin parts. The most numerous being the ERA tiles and the smoke grenade launchers.

The instruction sheet has Polish texts only (many thanks to Vodnik for his kind translation) and shows two drawings to guide the modeler. Nowhere in the instructions the Tamiya kit is mentioned and you guess it through the parts references. However this is stated in the Jadar website from which I got the kit.
Modelkrak would have been wise to mention the useless parts of the kit and to explain more thoroughly how to prepare the Tamiya kit parts e.g. no instruction about the armor plate on the front glacis, should it be sanded or not.

Let's go back to the kit itself. The detail is crisp and the molding of high standard. Very few air bubbles are present. On my kit, some are present on the grenade launchers cap.

The turret
This is the central subject of the conversion. The turret comes as a resin block on which must be glued the following parts : the smoke grenades supports (Modelkrak has omitted the grab handle on the side), the smoke grenade launcher tubes, the OBRA sensors (laser warning system), the original sight cover and the modernized sight door.
The remaining parts come from the Tamiya kit, that is the commander station, the loader hatch, the stowage bins, the schnorckel and so on. As this stage, the instruction sheet mentions the Tamiya parts not in use.
As the gun mantlet is casted with the turret and the Tamiya gun comes with the mantlet attached, it'll need some surgery or to be replaced by an aftermarket barrel.

The side skirts
Each one comes as a single piece with the same location pins as the Tamiya part it replaces. From the latter, you just keep the first section, the one being part of the front fender. The left side skirt does not present the metallic protection below the exhaust. As I have no close shot of this area, I can't tell if it's a mistake from Modelkrak or not.

The front glacis
It is represented by a large part with square portions to drill out (these are being marked with an X). As mentioned in the introduction, the question is : should we sand the add-on welded armor plate Tamiya molded here ?
After having glued the main part, some tiles remain to glue to each side of the driver station according to the instruction drawing.
The lower hull front rubber skirt installation needs to remove the triangular reinforcing plates of the front fenders. As mentioned in the instruction sheet, a styrene strip must be added to the upper hull to represent the upper fitting.

Unfortunately, no decoration scheme is proposed by the manufacturer whereas very little is available about this topic on the web. Keep in mind that this kit doesn't intend to represent the PT91M version which needs major alteration to the turret to be built from this conversion. However, this is an original kit for the T72 family fanatics.

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