Egyptian T122mm SPG
Another purchase being assembled for the Analogue Hobbies Winter Challenge. While picking up a few bits from my Favourite French hobby supplier during the Black Friday deals I picked up the 1/72 Blackdog conversion set for the Egyptian T34/122 self propelled howitzer, it may of been used during the 6 day war, but did serve during the Yom Kippur War.
This beast was based on a T34 chassis, in the majority T34/85 had T54 road wheels added also. Two batterys of T122 of 18 guns each did see action in the Yom Kippur. I do note that Syria also done a similar modification of the old T34 chassis.
The Blackdog kit has the turret, gun and wheels, barrel, baffles, and barrel rest, and finally two boxes. Really nicely cast, although some fine bits that will get damaged from wargaming (the equipment rings on the rear for example). Overall though quite easy to remove from the resin sprue, quite a bit of cleanup on the wheels though to clean out the holes and shape the pear, with two of mine have bad deformity flash from mold wear I suspect and I was supplied one incorrect wheel, although it could be easily modified. With a bit of patience everything cleaned up well and assembly was straight forward. The barrel baffles also need some flash clean up, but not too bad, be careful with the barrel alignment and the baffle assembly to ensure it is square.
T122 Egyptian kit
The kit recommends the dragon T34/85 or the Italeri. I did note that some people have used the zvesda kit also. My kit was a Italeri and upon dry fitting I needed to sand more off the bottom of the rear of the turret to get it to fit correctly. I also removed my front guards as per the surviving example in Israel.
Overall a great addition for anyone wanting to do something different or wanting like me to add it to your Egyptian army for 67 or 73 wars.
Overall a simple addition armour build, scoring a nine out of ten.
Plan to get some paint on it soon, when I do my next batch of Egyptians.
Cheers
Matt
The T-122 wasn't used in 1967. Although work started in the 1960s it didn't see action until 1973 YK war.
ReplyDeleteThere was an earlier T-34 based conversion, the T-100; this was done in 1960. There is a possibility it saw action in 1967 although not verified by most sources. There is a picture in Tom Gannon's "The T-34 series in the Arab-Israeli wars" Trackpad Publishing, showing a plain sand version rather than 1973 3-colour scheme which may indicate 1967. Examples were captured in 1973.
The Syrians had a different 122mm version without a turret. This was not converted until the 1970s and saw action in 1973 and later in Lebanon in 1982.
It's not clear from the conversion kit, but both the T-122 and T-100 used the existing T-34 turret (reversed in the T-100) chopped about with added armour.
Neil
Thanks for clearing that up Neil, I will change the dates
DeleteCheers
Matt