Italeri T-55 Tank Question, T-55 in General

Interesting they call this kit "popular" which -- while it was at the time of its introduction, there being no competiton -- it is not now.
There are four basic T-55 kits out there -- Trumpter (toylike with motors and batteries), SKIF (plain awful), Italeri/ESCI (reasonably awful) and Tamiya (very good, finally something other than panzers made to the same current standards!)
Save your money for the Tamiya kit. It can be made as a Soviet version, but as a base Model 1958 (no AA MG), a Model 1961 (T-55A with no AA MG and radiation cladding), or a Model 1970 T-55 or T-55A with radiation shielding and the AA MG.
They are still in use today, worldwide. Soviets built over 65,000 of them and the Chinese have produced around 30,000 more variants.
Cookie Sewell

And that's why we come here! Thanks, Cookie!
RobG