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T-60 (PLANT NO264)

Scale 1:35 - Styrene

T-60 light tank in winter whitewash camouflage, as produced in factory No 264 near Stalingrad.
A diorama set in the Stalingrad front in the winter of 1942.

HISTORY

THE TANK

The T-60 was designed by the famous tank designer Nikolai Astrov. Production began in 1941 but the design was officially discontinued a year later, in favour of larger tanks like the T-34. However, several automotive factories were unable to go into the production of the heavier models and some faced delays in receiving necessary components. So, production of the T-60 and its successor models (the T-70 and T-80) continued, mostly in an ad hoc basis.

SOVETSKI, NOVEMBER 23 1942

Operation Uranus was the codename of the Soviet 19–23 November 1942 strategic operation aimed to encircle the German Sixth Army, the Third and Fourth Romanian armies, and parts of the German Fourth Panzer Army.

On the 23rd of November the two pincers of the operation, one formed by the Stalingrad Front to the south of the city and the other by the Southwestern Front to the north, met near the village of Sovetski, effectively closing the encirclement.

THE MODEL

Soviet factories were famous (and notorious) for improvising during the Second World War. In the construction of the T-60 tanks plant No 264, near the city of Stalingrad, faced a severe shortage of materials, especially rubber for the tank’s road wheels.

ROAD WHEELS

Instead of rimming the wheels with rubber bands as the plans specified they developed a system whereby a rubber joint connected the steel-rimmed wheels to their axles, thus providing cushioning with a reduced amount of rubber.

TURRETS AND HATCHES

To accelerate production, plant 264 engineers simplified cutting and welding by eliminating all curves from the design and redesigning all hatches and covers to be angular rather than curved.