Mirage Hobby 1/35 Light Tank T-26(r) Panzerkampfwagen T-26 740(r) (355008)

The T-26 was the Soviet Union's most numerous tank in 1941 — itself a licence-built development of the Vickers 6-ton — and the catastrophic losses of Operation Barbarossa left thousands of them on Soviet territory, many intact or repairable. The Wehrmacht pressed captured T-26s into service under the designation Panzerkampfwagen T-26 740(r), using them for occupation duties, anti-partisan operations, and in some cases front-line combat on the Eastern Front. The (r) suffix stood for russisch — Russian — in the German designation system for captured equipment. These captured vehicles occasionally fought their original owners, and their presence on both sides of the line makes them one of the more poignant subjects in Eastern Front armour history. Mirage Hobby's 1/35 kit captures this captured variant with appropriate Wehrmacht markings options.

Soviet by birth, German by capture — the T-26(r) fighting for the enemy on the Eastern Front.