20mm Cold War TR-77 Part 1

Although time is short lately, I've been squeezing in a little work on a 20mm Cold War army for a sizable game in December. The posts over the next few days are the result of several months of work. Obviously the scenario is Cold War Gone Hot and Soviet hordes and their Warsaw Pact allies are rampaging across Western Europe. I'm never one for playing a major player army, and as my Danes were stored away (uncompleted) I thought I'd work on a second tier Warpac army, in this case Romania.

The Romanians tended to use much modified versions of Soviet kit, so there is ample scope for conversions and kit-bashing. First off we have the Romanian TR-77, a stretched T-55 with a Romanian gun. It was stretched to accomodate the Leopard 1 powerplant, which ultimately wasn't available to the Romanians at the time. The later TR-85 does have a copied Leopard unit, and thus requires more conversion - also the turret has a thickened front armour, and bulges at the back, hence why I stuck with the earlier tank.

The model is an S&S T-55, with some extra wheels kindly supplied by Shaun at S&S. Still lots of work to do, including adding side skirts which will hide the gap in the tracks.