Trumpeter 1/35 Soviet IT-1 Missile Tank
By Morgan Girling
History
It is hard to think of the IT-1 or Istrebitel' Tankov-1 (tank destroyer-1) as a Cold War equivalent of a StuG or Marder for a couple of reasons. First is that it's built on a front-line chassis (the T-62 MBT) instead of one which is sliding into obsolescence. Second, and much more visible is the lack of a gun. Instead of an oversized hull-mounted gun, it sports a specially designed 3M7 Drakon (dragon) missile deployed from a pop-up launcher atop an otherwise normal turret. Perhaps it was spillover of the “pushbutton war” orthodoxy in both side's airforces at the time, but it does give it a unique appearance.
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Introduced in 1968, the IT-1 saw limited service as it was unpopular with the army and was withdrawn two years later. This was due to two operational limitations: a large dead zone created by the missile's minimum range meant that they needed conventional tanks to protect them. Even though the 3M7 was a folding fin missile, it was still bulky and each IT-1 only carried 12 shots, with two spares in a box behind the turret. The extra 520 kg (1144lb) of additional missile guidance gear not only ate into performance but made the already cramped crew compartment doubly claustraphobic. Most IT-1s ended their life as recovery vehicles
What's in the Box
As one new to modeling AFVs, my first impression on receiving the sturdy 10”x16” corrugated cardboard box was one of “the Incredible Hulk.” Unlike the Aurora tanks of old where the big box contains a small model, this box needs to be as big as it is to hold the 11 bags holding 15 grey and four black plastic sprues of the road wheel tires. A separate compartment contains the lower hull, one clear sprue, and finally, like M. Creosote's “wafer-thin mint,” a small photoetched fret. A painting guide (spoiler alert: everything is forest green), a color flyer of upcoming kit attractionss, and the instruction booklet round out the collection.
Instructions
While we tackle kits with the maxim of “when all else fails, read the instructions,” this seemed like the logical place to start this time. The instructions were rather more elaborate than what I'm used to with aircraft models, consisting of 12 saddle-bound pages. The first interior page has the parts layout on the sprues, with the part numbers printed beside each part.
Unlike some Eastern European kits, the part numbers are also molded on little flags beside the parts as well, so one can hunt for a part by either method. The remaining pages 3-12 provide the assembly steps in what seems to be a logical order, progressing from wheels through lower hull, suspension, track assembly and fitting, upper hull, fenders, greeblies, boxes, turret, missile and final assembly.
One complaint I've heard of various kits is the vague assembly instructions, where an arrow points from the detail part in the general direction of the larger part or assembly it's supposed to fit on. Here, the arrows are pretty self explanatory, and where fiddly bits need to go on big pieces or subassemblies, there are holes or locator tabs shown on the destination as to where the part's pins are supposed to mate. A quick check of the parts shows that there are indeed holes in those locations, so Im confident the instructions are accurate.
The “wordless workshop” system of pictures and arrows and glyphs is amplified in key spots with bilingual English/Chinese words. Another place where these instructions differ from other kits is that there is no errata sheet explaining how the part you added three steps before is either superfluous, or supposed to be on the opposite side of the model. About the only thing I find lacking is the names of the parts so lovingly supplied on the old Revell kits - one isn't going to learn much terminology from this kit.
My thanks to Stevens International for the review kit.