1/35 chinese pla main battle tank ztz-99a1

It seems clear that Bronco had excellent access to the real tank when they were developing this model. There are nice color plates for both at the back of the instructions but unfortunately no top views which leaves the modeler to make a best guess, especially for the digital scheme. One is for the traditional style three color camouflage and the other is for the new digital style scheme. There are a separate lower hull tub, turret top, a nylon cord for the tow cable, and two small photoetch sheets.Īlso included are decals for tanks. With a full set of link-to-link tracks, the kit comes molded on 14 sprues of which seven are devoted to the track parts. But they are fixed only by a small notch so a modeler can easily remove that and get full suspension movement if they wish. However, the first and last road wheels are designed to be fixed so the tracks won’t curl up under tension. This allows a modeler to make a groundwork base with some small terrain changes and then have the suspension naturally articulate. The third, fourth and fifth road wheels (out of 6 total) have an actual torsion bar design so once installed they can ride up and down. Coupled with this is a semi-workable suspension. From a kit engineering perspective, one of the highlights is that the kit features a workable set of link to link tracks. The good news is that this kit only increases the high quality reputation that Bronco has already developed. For Bronco, this release is a very welcome departure from their previous releases which have been mostly World War 2 era. Presumably this is playing to their Chinese home market. Bronco and Hobby Boss are both in the process of releasing a whole series of kits based on the Type 99 of which the ZTZ-99A1 is the most modern. By most accounts, the ZTZ-99A1 is considered a highly capable tank on par with most modern tanks around the world. It also carries modular, replaceable reactive armor designed to not only be capable of future upgrades but also to be replaced in the field should it incur damage. The tank weighs approximately 57 tons, has a 125mm cannon, and uses a 1500 hp diesel engine. The design has a loose heritage to the Soviet T-72 but most of it has now been improved or completely redesigned. The Chinese ZTZ-99A1 MBT is the latest tank now entering service with China’s PLA.

1/35 chinese pla main battle tank ztz-99a1