What is right with it? It is a good model of a T34/85 as built by the Czechs from 1950 onwards. The proportions are good and there is a choice of turrets. It is well designed and easy to build.
What is wrong with it? Well it is not what it claims to be on the box!!! Its main weakness is its 85mm gun, which is in my opinion, too spindly and long. My advice is to shorten it a couple of mm and then drill out the barrel. The auxiliary fuel tanks are crude and could do with refining and the handrails on the turret and hull are best replaced with wire. The early turret, though a good model, is inappropriate as the kit has late 1944 onwards, angular mudguards and the later turret is post-war Czech. The late turret can be made into a war-time Russian variant by using filler and working from photos to get the correct shapes and curves. The whole kit feels slightly crude. The red star decals are totally inappropriate though when this kit was first produced the information available on Soviet vehicles was limited and in 1968 for some countries the T34 was still a frontline tank.
How does it compare? The Fujimi variants are both better, certainly the early 1941 version. The Matchbox kit has a poor turret, is as crude elsewhere and no better, and all modern kits made in the east are in 1/72nd. The Airfix kit, easier to find and good value for money, remains a good contender in this scale.
Corrections The easiest way is to replace the mudguards and use the early turret, replacing the 76mm with something more substantial than the kit offering and generally super-detailing the rest of the kit to taste. Stowage, crew and tank riders all help. Alternately paint the T34/85 desert sand and you then have a vehicle used by Egypt in 1956 in Suez or 1967 in the Six-Day War.
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