On May 15th,1955 the decade long Allied occupation of Austria came to an end. With the signing of the Austrian State Treaty by the occupying powers (France, The Soviet Union, The United States, and The United Kingdom) in Vienna and entered into force on July 27, 1955. Resulting in Austria becoming, a neutral and independent nation during The Cold War.
By late October of 1955, the four occupying powers had completely withdrawn their military forces from Austrian territory. However large numbers of both American and Soviet made military equipment was transferred to the Austrian Government. Forming the backbone of the Austrian Army and Air Force, post-independence. Apart of the newly formed Austrian Army armoured force, was 27 T-34/85 tanks. Given to the Austrian Government free of charge from the departing Soviets.
Until 1959 the Austrian Army’s T-34/85 tanks served as its primary Main Battle Tank. With the Austrians experiment with composite armoured units. Fielding both its T-34/85 tanks alongside its American made M-24 Chaffe light tanks.
However, by 1957 the first of Austria’s M-47 Patton tanks began to enter service. By 1959 the T-34 in had been removed from front line service. With many T-34 turrets being used in the Austrian Bunker system (The Ungerberg Installation). Today a few former Austrian T-34/85 tanks have been preserved as museum pieces.
As for the model, this Airfix vintage Classic kit the tooling dates back to 1967. It’s an easy build with several inaccuracies. However, I did replace the tracks with Green Stuff putty copies. From a Zvezda 1/72 scale SU-100.
The Austrian Decals were made from my spares box. First using the red centre roundel from an RAF decal set. Which was applied with Micro Set Decal Solution. The serial number came from a spare WW2 German panzer decal sheet.
Until next time thanks for watching and good luck with all your ongoing projects.
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Shuttle Factory Scale Models