The Soviets were great believers in three classes of tanks -- light, medium, and heavy. The lights were scout and infantry support tanks, the mediums the general purpose tanks, and the heavies the defense-busting offensive leaders. Over the past few years, there has been a steady release of kits covering Russian lights, the best known being the AER kit of the T-38 light amphibious tank and the Zvezda T-60 light tank. Now, TOGA has released the T-70.
TOGA is an umbrella organization of Modellbau TOM of Germany, which picks up stray kits from eastern European manufacturers and markets them under its own TOGA label. Most of their kits thus far have come from Poland and Moldova, and the T-70 is one of the Polish efforts. The T-70 has always been a personal favorite of mine, with its jaunty appearance, and I was glad to see a plastic kit of it appear on the market.

The T-70 was a follow-on to the T-60 and improved upon that tank by giving it thicker armor, more power (it used two truck engines bolted together back-to-back for simplicity, and so it could be built in truck plants) an extra road wheel, and most importantly, a 45mm cannon in place of the 20mm ShKAS on the former. While heavier, the new tank could at least hold its own against German Pz. III and Pz. IV tanks in the 1942 time frame long enough to run for it. Over 8,000 were built between 1942 and 1943, the even heavier T-80 upgrade was curtailed as there were more than enough T-70s to do the job. The latter was also too expensive and heavy to provide any added value. The chassis was used to develop the Su-76 and ZSU-37-1 self-propelled weapons, which soldiered on long after the T-70 was taken out of service at the end of World War II.

The kit is typical of eastern European "flat" molding techniques, with the hull coming in six parts -- belly, sides, glacis, roof, and rear plate. There is no detail on the belly, but there is also no big logo to grind off either. Detail is very delicate, in some cases being very hard to see, but the wheels and tracks appear to be fairly nice. The track is the more user-friendly "link and length" type, which is better with small models than individual link types.

There are some things which are left unexplained. The model provides both early (T-70) and late production (T-70M) driver-mechanic's and commander's hatches -- the former are smooth, the latter are equipped with rotating periscopes. It also has the early production T-70 exhaust. However, there is no option to install the later (and more common) T-70M exhaust or the final T-70M/T-80 armored exhaust. Plans of the former are hard to locate -- the only example I have are found in an article from the October 1985 issue of Modellist-Konstruktor in Russian, but Steve Zaloga has plans of the latter in his book "Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War Two". The engine louvers are also quite simplistic, and need to be replaced with louvers vice the bars given in the kit. This could probably be done by simply cementing thin strips of styrene to the bars at an angle rather than cutting out and replacing them entirely. I would also not use the very flimsy wedding veil material on the engine air intake, but replace it with aluminum screening (such as those provided by Chesapeake Model Designs or Scale Scenics).

Markings are included for at least two different tanks, but T-70s in service bore few markings at all. There is only one good photo of T-70s in winter camouflage with red lettering that I have found, and all the rest show plain green tanks. This lack of pizzazz and appeal caused by dull schemes has not led to great clamor for more tanks like the T-70, but it was a good serviceable vehicle and did its job, albeit without fanfare.

References:
Soviet Tanks and Combat Vehicles of World War Two, By Steven Zaloga. PUB..??? 19??. ISBN ???.