I found this to be a good kit. Lots of parts, but they go together pretty well. One of the model’s best features, in my opinion, are the hard plastic tracks: they are sooo much easier (for me) than the kind that have lots of fiddly little “link-and-length” pieces, and yet they still look more realistic than the rubber or vinyl tracks — though I confess to still liking those for the sticky way they feel when I put the tank down on a hard surface! I do not plan to purchase more Zvezda kits at this time, but I had this one and one other (the T-35, of course) on the shelf, so here it is.

The commander figure is from Orion’s “Soviet Tankmen and Crew.” To me, he’s looking a bit over-confident, given what happened in the summer of 1941. (Hence the subtitle of this post…) In 1929 the USSR had but 340 tanks, virtually none of them of home-grown design. By 1941 the Russians had built an astounding 28,000 tanks, the most in the world, including small tanks, fast tanks, and multi-turreted “battleship tanks” — but they lost all but 1500 of them in the first year of the war. (Tanks of the USSR)  If this tankman’s mount is the T-28 in ’41, he was probably in for a tragically rude awakening.