Just finished this odd little tank last week. Just as a quick history lesson after Stalin helped Mao overthrow the legitimate Chinese government the Soviets equiped the Red Chinese with Soviet weapons like the T-54 medium tank. After the big falling out the Chinese proceeded to copy much Soviet hardware including the T-54. The Type 59 was the Chinese copy which was so close apparently a bulge for a different transmission on the lower rear hull is the only external difference.

Then the Chinese decided to develop a light tank for use in southern China which is fairly marshy and swampy where they were worried a medium would bog down. So they came up with the weird decision to scale down the 35 ton Type 59 to a 21 ton light tank. This developed into this tank- the Type 62. When I first opened the box I wondered if Trumpter had packed a 1/48th T-54 hull and turret in the box!

The Chinese only used the tank in action once in the Sino-Vietnamese War in the late '70s with pretty ugly results. The Vietnamese had piles of Soviet built RPGs designed to knock out tanks like the M48 and Centurion. Against the Type 62 with 5cm armour at it's thickest and 1.5cm on the rear RPGs ripped though them like soggy tissue paper. The Chinese started bolting on extra armour plates afterward. Still it was pulled from service in the late '80s. It is still in use by various Asian, African, and Middle Eastern nations.

This was a good kit, no real issues at all. I had some issues finding a late '70s-early '80s tank crew so I ended up taking a Soviet set from ICM and replacing the heads with Hornet east Asian heads. The fisher guy is a Dragon Viet Cong figure with his gear grinded off.

With a PLA Type 59, sorry I don't have a T-54...

And the real thing...