History
The basic design of the T-90 is based on the T-70 light tank. It began to appear in the fall of 1942. Instead of an enclosed gun turret it was replaced with an open-top octagonal turret mounting twin 12.7mm DshKt machine guns in an anti-aircraft role. The twin MGs could elevate toa maximum of 85 degrees. The crew of two had 480 rounds of 12.7mm ammunition with them.
The Kit
Consistent with other UM kits, the box art is very well done with a color plate on the front and back when you get ready to paint and apply decals. The color plate on the back shows a T-90. There is a Humbrol color reference to use when you are ready to paint. The T-90 kit contains a 21 part sprue of photo-etch and 5 styrene sprues containing 97 parts. The soft styrene parts are molded in trademark green drab with no sinkholes but does have some protruding injector pin on some parts. There is no flash residue. All parts appear to be well defined and in scale.
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As the norm, you have a multi-lingual (Ukraine, English and German) instruction sheet. You will find it is very well illustrated with a Humbrol paint reference. To assist in assembly there is a symbol legend for gluing, painting, drilling, etc. Included is a numbered parts location diagram where unused parts are shaded to eliminate confusion during assembly. Assembly begins with the lower hull in step 1. Step 2 mates the road wheels, drive sprockets and suspension arms on the lower hull. The dish-type road wheels are nicely detailed for as small of a kit this it. Step 3 calls for the mounting of the length/link tracks to the road wheels and drive sprockets. The tracks are very small but finely detailed on both sides. Step 4 begins upper hull detailing then mating the upper and lower hulls. The upper hull is adequately detailed. Too bad there isn't a photo-etched engine deck screen, but the molded one is adequate. Steps 5 - 7 focus on the assembly of the octoganal shaped turret with photo-etch detailing. The 12.7mm machine guns are as nice as you could expect for such small weapons in this scale. You will need to drill out the main gun barrels but don't forget to do the same with the engine exhausts. Also, use a round dental bit to open up the headlight assembly (9A) for an MV lens. That would really enhance the appearance of this model. Finally, you must and mark your T-90. Your only vehicle color is light olive green. The quality of the decals is excellent with decal film that is very thin and the printing of the markings are fine. There appears to be markings for three vehicles. All are undocumented units in Soviet markings. Positioning of the decals does not appear to be difficult as they are all located primarily on flat surfaces.
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Conclusion
This is another nice offering from UniModel that does not lack in quality and is reasonably priced. The scale level of detail is consistent with their other kits. I suggest a more experienced modeler take this on due to the amount of very small parts. I would like to thank Scale Model Kits for the review kit.