Armored Fist

Modeling Modern Main Battle Tanks in 1/72nd Scale

In Pat Storto's superb AFV Museum, he pays homage to one of his favorite armor reference books by building models of each tank discussed in the book. I thought that was one of the most creative ideas for a webpage that I have seen in a long time, and since I am quite unimaginative myself, I decided to emulate (a polite way of saying "copy") his idea with one of my own favorite references: Jane's Tanks and Combat Vehicles Recognition Guide. But anyone who is familiar with this book will immediately realize what an unrealistic goal such an undertaking would be, so I had to change my plans a little bit.

I then decided that I would instead model only the Main Battle Tanks (MBTs) included in this book, disregarding (for now) the other armored vehicles included in this excellent reference work. But once again, reality checks in, and informs me that this is still an unachievable objective, since many of the most modern MBTs are not yet available in this scale. Unwilling to admit defeat, and simply pick a different subject for an article, I chose rather to change the scope of this article, and instead of actually building models of all modern MBTs, I will simply provide a discussion and catalogue of available kits for these tanks with links to Reviews and Previews of whichever kits are available. Perhaps this article will give readers some ideas of what kits to vote for in the Most Wanted Kit Survey.

But now this begs the question: how do I define the term Modern? Many people use this term to describe anything post-World War II. That's a pretty broad classification, and would entail a huge list. Others interpret the term to mean any vehicle still in current production. Well, now this is the opposite extreme, and would provide a fairly restrictive list, since so few countries actually currently produce MBTs. So I thought that a good compromise might be to define modern MBTs as any MBT still in active service somewhere in the world today. On further thought, this really could provide a list not substantially smaller than the first option of anything post-WW II, but I am going to stick with it.

But in order to better visualize and organize the vehicles, I will divide them into the following separate categories:

• Not Yet in Service - These are vehicles that were built as prototypes, and have not yet been (or may never be) accepted for service, or not yet in service in numbers larger than experimental units.

• In Production - These tanks represent the most current military technology currently being fielded by today's armies.

• Out of Production - This is older technology; vehicles that are no longer being built anywhere in the world because of obsolescence. But due to international arms sales, these tanks may be seen currently in the armies of numerous countries which do not produce their own MBTs. They may also be seen in second line, or reserve units in the country of origin, because national defence budgets don't allow for their complete replacement with newer technology.

Not Yet in Service

In Production

Out of Production