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Saturday, August 29, 2026

T54 Odd Things

For a very long time essentially all Roco military vehicles were the same black green color.
This Roco T44 tank has a black green hatch.
But the rest of the vehicle is the olive green that Roco changed to at some point, perhaps in the 1980s.  I like it a lot better, it's easier to paint over, not so glossy, and looks better for American tanks at least.

At about the same time, they started making other vehicles in other colors.  Yellow or gray for WWII German tanks for example.  This is a camouflaged T54 hull that was originally the standard black green.  Note the configuration of the large hull box on the fender.
Here is another one, note the serious mold error on the hull box.
As some of the molds got older more and more flaws began to show up.
This is the only one I have seen with this flaw, but the hole in the turret horn is common as is a mis-molded right side track.  Judging by my collection of about 190 T54 tanks this is the only one of this problem but the mis-molded right side track is about 3% of the models and the turret hole about the same.

Some of the T54 tanks have enough flash on the gun barrel, turret end, that the gun no longer fits properly.  A quick move with the X-Acto knife fixes this problem.
 

1 comment:

jeigheff said...

I don't have any Roco models any longer. But I once owned a Roco German Mark IV tank which was cast in dark yellow plastic. It was a very good model.