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A Russian MS-1 Tank Is Built from Scratch in Front of Your Eyes

The MS-1 tank, like all tanks before World War Two, was basically crap. It was a tin can on tracks that could only scare a fearful chicken. They had virtually no armor, and their offensive capabilities were limited.
MS-1 frame exiting the workshop 1 photo
Photo: Screenshot from YouTube
If you’re a World of Tanks player, you’ll know the MS-1 as the Tier I Russian tank, the one you thankfully only have to play for three missions or so, until you get enough experience to unlock the next one. It’s a painful experience that reminds you of when you were little, and you were pretending that cardboard box was a tank. It felt similar.

These guys from UFO Garage set out to build a replica of this two-man tank for reasons only they or whoever speaks Russian can understand. Since it’s a replica, it has no historical value, so museums are out of the question, but it could still be used for demonstrative purposes or even in movies, as it definitely looks the par.

It will never cease to amaze me what people can do as long as they have a shed, some tools, plenty of knowledge and even more spare time on their hands. Oh, and passion. And tons and tons of plywood, apparently.

If the original MS-1 tank was a joke in terms of armor, the one these guys made would feel more at home on IKEA’s shelves than on the battlefield: apart from the steel tubes frame, it’s covered in plywood and all those rivets you see there are fake, carefully placed there by hand and held in place with screws. Ok, so there is some metal after all.

It’s almost a shame they even had to put all that fake armor on. The bare frame being driven in the snow looked like a lot of fun. A sort of Ariel Atom on tracks. The whole project reportedly took eight months to complete, but that’s understandable given the excruciating attention to detail. If there’s one thing we don’t like it’s the immaculate paint job. A little patina would have suited the MS-1 better. It is a war machine, after all.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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