T-80H Hovertank
Renovating an old kit

By Mark Powley

It's 2010. Mikhail Gorbachov was ousted in a coup by combined hardline Military and Stalinist forces within the Politburo before he could announce perestroika, glasnost and other economic and social reforms. The Soviet Union stagnates even more and eventually a desperate leadership invade western Europe to try and remedy the situation. The invasion fails but NATO/US forces are only able to retake conquered territory very slowly. Neither side wants to go nuclear, so WW3 has become a low/medium intensity war of attrition

As a break from more serious modelling I felt I needed to do something different. I felt like doing something both armour and sci-fi, so after a bit of thought I decided to refurbish a Dragon T-80ERA kit I did many moons ago that was just sitting around in a cupboard and turn it into a Hovertank. The only criteria I set myself was that it wasn't to get bogged down in too much detail.

First I removed the tracks, wheels and all the ERA blocks as well as many of the smaller fittings. Then I stippled on Mr Surfacer onto the turret to give it that nice cast look that Russian armour has. The stowage was rearranged, the snorkel relocated from the hull rear to the turret rear to be used as a stowage box and the smoke grenade launchers rebuilt because I broke them. I uparmoured the glacis plate with some plastic card cut to shape.

Now the hard bit - the side skirts. After a bit of thought and trial and error I came up with this. More plasticard for the top extension and the front with all the mudflaps from the kit being reused. I decided that my model was going to be radio command vehicle so I added a telescopic radio mast made from plastic tube to where the unditching log was and added a mounting plate to the top of the turret. I felt that the driver vision blocks were a bit too small for my liking so some old ones from the spares bin replaced the kit items. For a few hours work spread over 10 days the final result was this:

I actually had to spray the model twice as the first time around the paint I used dried in a mix of glossy and matt patches and was an olive drab colour rather than green shade I was after. The whole thing looked like crap! At a guess I'd say the paint had gone off somehow. A new jar and a quick respray took care of that problem. The rubber side skits were painted in a 50/50 mix of Matt Black and Revell Coal Black to give them a slightly faded look. Periscopes are black with a coat of clear gloss with the Infra-red lights black with a clear red top coat.The markings are from a Verlinden dry transfer sheet of WW2 Russian markings. As a way of promoting espirit d'corps crews are encouraged to use WW2 symbols. This particular crew are from a Guards unit and went with 54th Guards Tank Brigade markings. I managed to forget to paint the glacis rubber splash guard and the engine intake grills so I had to fix them up plus I decided to reattach the tow cables.

I approach weathering armour with a "more dirt the better" style. When I first got into armour I used to do lots of heavy drybrushing and black washes just like all the 'experts' did but I was never really happy. Over the last couple of years I've developed my own style. This involves a very very light drybrushing of the detail with a barely lightened camo colour. Next I airbrush a heavy coat of dark earth over the bottom of the tank grading lighter up the sides with a very light misting on the top surfaces. Then I'll do any chipping, scratches and bare metal areas but with a very sparing approach. The next step is an overall wash of dark brown that I apply with an airbrush. Depending on my mood and the type of vehicle I'll apply a heavy or light wash. Last up are the details - fuel spills, oil leaks etc.

The whole project was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed doing it. I managed to put an old kit to good use and i was pleased with the result. Hmm, the T-80 could do with an adversary......

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