T34/76 muzzle brake?

[poi]

Hi folks

Just picked up three T34/76 in PSC's D Day sale. arrived today.

At first glance, some very nice mouldings. I have a question about the gun, which appears to have a very slim muzzle brake on both barrel variants. I can't find this in any pics of tanks in service, and the only mention I found was for captured tanks in Finnish or German service.

Can anyone enlighten me as to its historical reference?

TIA.

[Pinky]

I couldn't find any evidence of a muzzle brake on the T-34/76.  It's also included on Rubicon's otherwise excellent 1943 model turret.  I'd sand it down flush with the barrel.  It's one of the few errors in this kit.  Note that the smoke canisters included in the kit are also incorrect for this version of the T-34.

[Rubicon Models]

We are not sure if you can called the thickened tip (we might have exaggerated it a bit) of the barrel a muzzle brake.  A muzzle brake or recoil compensator is a device connected to the muzzle of a cannon that redirects propellant gases to counter recoil and unwanted rising of the barrel during rapid fire.  We do not see any features of a muzzle brake on that gun barrel tip... we can only guess it was part of the original barrel design.

With references to the Squadron Armor #20 T-34 in action book, almost all drawings of the T-34/76 models had that bored tip.  In fact, on the same publication, a lot of the T-34s photos had that thin outline at the tip of their gun barrels.  Because they are B/W picture and the contrast is not the best, but still you can see that feature faintly!  This is also why we have put it onto our model.  Removing the feature is easy by sanding it down, but adding it back takes extra skill; that's why we have leave it on there!

[Pinky]

You're right; the thickened end of the muzzles of your T-34/76 guns wouldn't be a muzzle brake; that kind of feature is normally a counterweight (the early US 75mm gun had one of these).  The Soviet F-34 76.2mm does seem to have had a thread around the barrel near the muzzle, as shown in all the line drawings, but the end doesn't seem to have been thicker than the rest of the barrel.  It's a small thing to fix, as you say.   

[Pinky]

I did some more digging because I'd been wondering about this point too.  I found this reasonably clear photo of an F-34 barrel - it does look as though the end section was ever so slightly thicker than the rest of the barrel.  I will sand the ends of my Rubicon T-34/76 barrels down so they're almost flush.