Review | Plastic Soldier Company T-55 plastic box set 1/100 (15mm) | Modern

The Plastic Soldier Company have entered the Cold War with this plastic kit of the T-55 - the Soviet workhorse Main Battle Tank in use around the world. This kit builds the Cold War variants for Russia, Poland and Czechoslovakia as well as the upgraded T-55AM2 with laser rangefinder and extra armour.
Join us as we build this kit, look at the positives and negatives, and check out some history. We also look at Team Yankee stats for the T-55AM2. Cold War players will also be keen to see Battlegroup: Northag - Cold War rules for the battlegroup system due out next year.
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[@chrissanders5286]

Thanks for the build notes. I have two boxes to get to and am glad to see what it will take to get them to the table. Much Appreciated!

[@FogofWar]

No problem. I've been keen to review these for ages!

[@johnkelley9877]

Nice kit with detail that rivals larger scale models. Thanks for the review.

[@benjamingrams333]

nice review, thanks for that. I got a little wistful at the end when you said "lets wait what PSC has for other cold war options". With Battlegroup Northag being 10mm I guess it will be a long time until we see something "usefull" from PSC for a long time

[@FogofWar]

I agree. It is a shame. They have plans for a 15mm Centurion in plastic. I would have been a big customer for that. I'm guessing the shift to 10mm was to avoid competition with BF and Team Yankee. Not what I would have chosen, but I hope it works out OK for PSC.

[@Rubbseh]

Excellent review, lots of design detail and thanks for the nods to Battlegroup. Great!

[@FogofWar]

+Rubbsalot I'm really looking forward to seeing Battlegroup Northag. Not sure how that will change how I do reviews.

[@markuskelvin1800]

i know im asking the wrong place but does someone know of a method to get back into an instagram account..? I somehow forgot the login password. I appreciate any tricks you can give me!

[@angelolegend5190]

@Markus Kelvin Instablaster ;)

[@markuskelvin1800]

@Angelo Legend thanks for your reply. I got to the site on google and Im in the hacking process atm. Seems to take quite some time so I will reply here later with my results.

[@markuskelvin1800]

@Angelo Legend it did the trick and I now got access to my account again. I am so happy:D Thanks so much, you saved my ass :D

[@GhostMaker00]

Thanks I bought 2 of these kits, cause of this!

[@FogofWar]

I hope they work out well for you. Good luck!

[@danmorgan3685]

I'm surprised their isn't an option for Explosive Reactive Armor. The application of ERA was and is common so I'm a little surprised.

[@FogofWar]

ERA became common but somewhat later. It was a lot more common on T-72 and T-64. T-55s in Soviet and other Warsaw Pact countries like East Germany fielded the add-on passive armour upgrade with the laser-rangefinder, making it the more common Cold War configuration in Europe.

[@danmorgan3685]

@Fog of War Fair enough but I was hoping for reactive armor for gaming more modern conflicts like the Syrian Civil War.

[@FogofWar]

+Dan Morgan Both Team Yankee and Battlegroup Northag are Cold War and the models reflect this. But maybe a minor manufacturer will step in and make some.

[@DominusRexDK]

yay finally someone did a video review of the kit.

[@FogofWar]

+Steffen Mikkelsen It has been on my review list for weeks, but it took longer to make the video than I hoped. Plus some flu! But it is done now. Can't wait to order some Leopard Is!

[@DominusRexDK]

yeah really looking forward to the review of that one as well. i will be needing quite a lot of those for my Danish force for team yankee.

[@michaeltubbs4606]

Great review. I would have liked a side by side dimensions and details comparison with the Battlefront model as you have done with other models.

[@FogofWar]

Hi Michael. I think this review predated the BF plastic T-55, so I couldn’t really do that. Plus BF hate it when reviewers do this.

[@michaeltubbs4606]

@@FogofWar understood. I was wanting to use some S&S models conversion kits to build armored recovery vehicles and engineer vehicles on the PSC t-55 and was wondering if those Vehicles would end up looking out of place next to Battlefront t-55s. Mostly just a size comparison.

[@chrisebz6473]

I may get a few of these kits to supplement the battlefront kits. I was shown plastic soldier company awhile ago but the US battlefront office is so close to my home I've been lazy as boxes usually get here within days hahaha

[@FogofWar]

I really enjoyed these, although all the turret parts for the AM2 took a while to assemble.

[@chrisebz6473]

Yeah I'm won over, I like supporting the IP holders so games survive, but my east Germans want a butt load of tanks and psc to supplement battleground will make my wallet not want to come alive and strangle me

[@chrisebz6473]

And if I mix them with the battlefront I don't think the detail barrels will stick out

[@FogofWar]

You know there is a BF plastic T-55 kit due out this year, right?

[@chrisebz6473]

Actually I did not thanks for letting me know. I figured they'd get a plastic kit at some point but figured it would be further down the line

[@chrisebz6473]

Got a kit in and it wasn't half bad, but yeah alot of fitment for the hull including the hole the turret goes in

[@FogofWar]

I certainly enjoyed building mine. The faults were pretty minor and it is nice to have this in plastic. I'm curious to see what the BF plastic one due this year will be like.

[@shaunlee9716]

Its a great kit , but has one rather major omission. Doesnt have the prominent gun sight and coax ports on the turret. Although its missing not hard to use some green stuff to make a them, otherwise a nice addition and great that PSC have decided to challenge FoW.

[@FogofWar]

Well spotted! It is such a prominent feature and I completely missed it wasn't there! I expect they think most will end up as AM2s where the turret add-on armour hides this a bit.

[@shaunlee9716]

Usually the first thing i try to spot is how the AFV is going to look when going into a fight. Its a bit like all the T-34 kits have the drivers vision ports all closed, also minor i think easy to fix at 15mm scale. I like the kit but some of these omissions seem weird when some of their ww2 stuff is great. Will be greenstuffing a radio antenna too these aswell ! the good thing is this isnt hard to do just doesnt look as nice.

[@bigyeet3444]

Great video. Keep up the good work.

[@FogofWar]

+Casual Gamer Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@senint]

Cool review Now in year 2023 my only question is ”if this kit would be a viable option for building Finnish T-55 Company due to recently released Nordic Forces book forTeam Yankee?” 😅

[@FogofWar]

Finland bought T-54s and T-55s from the Soviet Union, so you can build these from this kit easily. Finland upgraded these tanks to the Finnish T-55M standard in the 80s-90s. These have added stowage bins. Maybe the ones in this kit would work. They didn't (as far as I know) get add-on armour or the over-barrel laser rangefinders of the Soviet T-55AM series.

[@senint]

@@FogofWar Yes. Other outer upgrades were smoke grenade dispencers and illumination grenade mortars, and there is somesort of ”thermal sleeve” mentioned about being added around the gun barrel. 😅

[@PsychoMan]

to me these tanks are still usefull because they can still support infantry. you cant say they arent protected because an ifv wouldnt do better.

[@FogofWar]

They can't go toe-to-toe with modern armour, but you are right - they are still useful. And numbers can count as well.

[@PsychoMan]

morden armor is basicly good as these tanks in my opinion because, an anti tank weapon these days are very deadly even for state of the art tanks. so i think there is still place for these, plus for afican countries its cheaper to buy better security for them (ERA armor ou anti rpg sensores)

[@sekcjato332]

There is no part for Polish T55AM Merida. Only Russian and Czechoslovakian version AM.

[@FogofWar]

The instructions show Polish T-55 and T-55A, but yes, no Polish option for T-55AM.

[@ChitznBlipz]

Are you on drugs ?? The T55 is not a direct descendant of the T34 at all.. the T54/55 family was a replacement for the T34 .. you should probably do a little research and know a little bit about what your talking about before you try stating "facts"

[@FogofWar]

Thank you for your comment. The T-44 was the end result of the resurrected pre-war T-34M development program. By the time T-44 was developed, T-34 already mounted the 85mm gun. T-44 was then further developed to mount the 100mm gun, involving a significant hull and turret redesign. This is a fairly clear direct development pathway directly from T-34 to T-54 rather than replacement with a new design from scratch as you suggest. I hope this clears this up for you.

[@FogofWar]

So, further research has sources split about 50/50 as to whether the T-44 was a development of T-34 or a new design. The three sources I used all agreed it drew on the T-34M, but others are not so sure. Keep that in mind when viewing the history portion of this video. Despite the tone of the original commenter here, it’s good to question your understanding of your sources and get things right.