Warthog

Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company
1/48 Scale
£30.00 (plus postage)

Warthog is the latest in a range of dual-body all-terrain tracked vehicles purchased by the British Army over the past few decades. Previous vehicles of this type traditionally came from Hagglunds in Sweden (long since taken over by BAe Systems). Although designed for use in Arctic environments their low ground pressure means that they are equally useful in marshy and desert areas. The Warthog however is produced by ST Kinetics from Singapore. It is a modified version of their Bronco and was sourced by the MOD to replace the BVS10 Viking AATV being used in Afghanistan. It is a heavier, more robust vehicle than its Swedish cousins.

The Honourable Lead Boiler Suit Company (HLBS) isn't a company that will be well known to modellers, although if you're a wargamer it is likely to be more familiar. Amongst their wide range of figures and accessories are a series of modern AFVs manufactured to a 'true' 1/48 scale. It is important to mention this because modellers and wargamers have a different interpretation of 'scale'. Where armour and aircraft modellers work to a series of 'proportional' scales (1/72, 1/48, 1/35 etc), figure modellers (and by extension, gamers) generally work to scales that are defined by the height of the figure (nominally ground level to eye level). Popular gaming scales include 15mm, 25mm, 28mm and less commonly, 40mm. It is not easy to do a straight conversion from one to the other as gaming scales allow greater latitude in the interpretation of the physical size of the figures and vehicles. However, a very rough comparison would equate 20mm to 1/76 scale, 28mm to 1/56 scale and 40mm to 1/48 scale.

The two main body units are cast as single pieces and each track unit is also cast as a single item. The complex steering unit located between the two cabins is cast in brass to provide strength and rigidity (that's another two parts) and then there are the roof cargo boxes, mudflaps, machine gun cupola and shield, brass .50 cal MG and that is about it. The parts are well cast and the solid body units include a good amount of detail. The track units are also well defined.

Inevitably there are compromises to be had with a wargames model. The hull units are solid lumps of resin so windows will need to be defined with paint rather than glazing (unless you feel like some  major surgery); the track units have no detail on their inner surfaces and some of the detail on the parts is a bit chunky. The aim of this build was to refine the kit into a something more appropriate for the 'scale model' genre. What this meant in practical terms was to add detail in some areas, replace some of the parts and ignore problems with others.

Starting at the front...
There are a couple of features missing including forward lifting shackles and a distinctive grille/inset panel. For the shackle points, a 45 degree slot needs to be carved into the solid resin above each track run. Into this a small shackle point carved from 40x80 thou plastic strip was added.

The next element needs some more serious resin carving. The British vehicle has a cut-out in the lower front panel of the hull. Into this slot fits a plate with a slotted 'V' profile. The resin is easily carved so with a bit of care, the relevant area can be marked out and removed with a scalpel  and dental burrs before being tidied up with some sanding sticks. Next a panel of 10 thou card was carefully marked out with the profile of the grille and the slots cut out with a new scalpel blade to ensure a clean cut. The 10 thou panel can then be attached to the resin body with superglue.

The solid headlights were carved away and replaced with new units constructed from plastic strip, with stretched sprue used to create the bars across the front. The units were left off the model until the last minute to allow the headlamp lens and sidelight bars to be slid into the units after they were painted. Wing mirrors from an Airfix Landrover were salvaged from the spares box and fitted to new arms before being attached to the headlight guards. Also at the front of the hull there are a pair of mudflaps but they will be dealt with later in the build.

Above the front windscreens are a pair of sensors (part of the ECM suite). The kit provides them as moulded-on square lumps but they should actually be larger and rectangular in shape, plus they need to angle downwards. Once fitted in place, holes for the wiring were drilled for both the ECM units and also the smoke grenade launchers. The kit-supplied smoke grenade launchers had their tubes replaced with thin plastic tubing to give an 'empty' look.

HLBS provide a weapons station above the front cab mounting a .50 cal heavy machine gun. Closer inspection revealed that the shape of the turret had been simplified and the temptation to build a better example proved too much. Before tackling the turret itself a circular collar needs to be fitted to the cabin roof. It's 12mm in diameter and 3mm tall.

The real turret is fabricated from bulky composite armour rather than metal plate, so even in 1/48 scale, the side walls are quite thick. It has a roughly hexagonal shape when viewed from above, although it isn't that straightforward. The walls are also bent or curved in places and the various wall sections are different lengths. Construction commenced with a floor cut to something approximating the final size of the turret. The hatch opening , previously marked out on the plastic can then be cut away with a compass cutter. A second plate also needs to be cut, slightly smaller than the first one and then glued to the underside of the larger one.

The first two panels to be fitted were the main side units. Each was cut from 30thou (9mm high x 12mm long) card and then bent slightly in the middle to create a shallow 'V' profile. The forward edge needs to be cut back at a slight angle to accommodate the slope of the front armour panels. Next, the rear panel was created and glued into place (it should be vertical rather than canted backwards, but hindsight is a wonderful thing...)

Once these main panels had been fixed into place, the rear corner panels and the shorter front panels   could be fitted. The basic shapes were cut by eye and left oversize. Each was then carefully trimmed and sanded until it was a snug fit. Small amounts of filler soon sorted out any minor imperfections. The gun shield is again quite thick so 30 thou card provided the raw material. Measurements from the resin original were transferred to the card and the whole shield cut and bent to shape. A basic gun mount filled the front of the turret and then a range of smaller details were added to finish it off.

The most distinctive elements are the wire cutters. These were gently shaped from sections of 10x60 thou plastic strip and made as identical as possible. The front units (on the gun shield) are made up of two 'hooks' each, whilst the rear pair are a single 'hook' with a plain lip to provide strength. The rest of the detail is strengthening ribs and bolt supports.

A brass casting of a .50cal MG is supplied but it lacks finesse. The spares box produced a Tamiya example which was cleaned up and had a new ammunition tray built to house a modern .50 cal ammo box (sourced from Red Zebra, a small UK aftermarket producer).

Moving back along the hull an error became apparent. The rear doors are located far too close to the cab doors. Either the rear doors are too large or there is a fundamental error in the dimensions of the forward hull unit. A decision was taken to ignore the error and the door handles were added.
These are simple strips of plastic sanded to a more tapered profile. Next came the two engine exhaust vents which are square-section tubes that mount underneath the overhanging rear roof panel on the left of the vehicle. Also fitted at this stage was the external fire extinguisher hand pull and its associated guard. The overly thick rear mudguards were carved away and replaced with new panels made from 15 thou plastic. Again, mudflaps will be added but that comes later.

Finally, there are three radio aerials and a satcom 'cruciform' aerial to be added to the roof. HLBS helpfully provide indications of where these go, but the aerial mounts themselves are not provided. The three mounts were constructed from thin brass tube and plastic tube. Short sections of the plastic tube were slipped over the brass tube and superglued into place. Then the ends of the plastic tube were sanded to a taper. By cutting the brass tube slightly above and below the plastic part, you are left with a visible collar above it and a suitable 'pin' with which to attach it to the model (via a pre-drilled hole). The aerials themselves are very thin brass rod. (Albion Alloys provide a huge selection of brass rod and tube, including packages of different sizes that will fit inside one another - perfect for this type of task.).  The cruciform aerial was very much a item built by guesswork. It took a couple of attempts before a good, evenly dimensioned cross was formed. 

Hydraulic Steering
The core of this type of vehicle is the hydraulic steering and drive assembly that connects the two separate cab units together. The HLBS kit offers a two-part brass casting to represent this complex system. Inevitably, some of the technical detail has been sacrificed in the interests of keeping the assembly robust. It would be necessary to build a completely new assembly from scratch to accurately replicate the real drive system, so a decision was taken to improve the kit parts instead.

The kit offers a single umbilical hose to connect the two units where the real vehicle has multiple hoses. The brass hose was therefore sawn off the assembly. This clears the way for the addition of another hydraulic ram above the main shaft unit. At this point a decision was also taken to build a  ram similar to the brass examples. Although not entirely accurate, it would at least ensure consistency. Similarly, the rear part of the steering assembly needs an extra ram mounted above the main shaft.

The next step is to prepare the multiple umbilical cables that link the two cabins. Again, some simplification was made as it is unclear where each of the hoses connects. Several of the hoses are fed through a single, larger 'cable tidy' (like an oversized version of the type used for computers and IT equipment for example). It is wise not to install the cables until right at the end of the project, after most of the painting has been done, but there is no harm in taking the time to check lengths and working out how each cable will drape between the cabins.

The Rear Cabin
A number of changes were also made to the rear cabin. On the front slope, a rectangular area was carved out to receive various pipes and cables for the steering unit. In addition, a length of 20x40 thou strip needs to be added to create the ridge that runs up the joint between the two front plates.

Moving onto the roof, the forward stowage bin and ECM platform has a fundamental error in that it sits flat on the roof when it should be raised on legs above it. The moulded, corrugated hose that connects the unit to the main rear cabin makes this adjustment difficult unless an alternative material can be found. After searching through the spares box, a set of flexible rubber 'oxygen hoses' from MDC was discovered. The set offers two diameters of hose - 1.5mm and 2mm. In an ideal world, a 2.5mm (or even 3mm) hose would have been a better match, but the smaller hose would suffice. The kit hose was therefore carved off the main unit and replaced with a length of the flexible rubber hose.

The stowage bin is covered in a fabric weatherproof cover - wine bottle foil is a good material for this type of work as it is thin and flexible, whilst being robust enough to hold its shape once bent. A perforated heat guard was added to the front from scrap photo etch sheet.

The ECM platform that sits above the stowage bin has two ECM 'beer can' aerials fitted and the whole upper surface is covered with small square mounting plates for further aerials. Unfortunately, some of these are not very 'square' so in the end, the two moulded aerials and the small squares were all removed to leave a smooth surface. Before doing this however, the locations for the various aerials (x5) were marked with small holes drilled into the resin. The two new 'beer can' aerials were cut from plastic tube, whilst the other aerials were constructed in the same way as those on the front hull unit.

On the left side of the roof are two parallel bars which should be a towbar. A new one was fabricated from plastic rod of similar diameter (1.5mm), with towing eyes and shackle points carved from plastic strip. The long, single tube on the right side had the ends reamed out and a crossbar fitted at each end to better replicated the one on the real vehicle. It should also be noted at this point that all the lifting eyes on the roof were also replaced with thicker, more in-scale examples carved from plastic strip.

The kit-supplied rear stowage bin is simplified and the rear angle of the box is too shallow. The front is also incorrect. The box also sits on a metal frame that overhangs the rear of the vehicle. To sort this out a new box of similar overall dimensions was constructed from plastic card.

Moving round to the rear door, the window aperture is square, when it should be rectangular. To correct this, the lower section of the window frame was carved away and a new lower frame added from plastic strip. The related light bar just below the window (to illuminate the rear number plate and convoy marker) also needs to be removed and replaced with a new one just below the revised window.

HLBS supply all the required mudflaps as thin resin pieces but they look better if constructed from wine bottle foil. The largest items are those fitted to the rear of the front cab, with smaller mudflaps fitted elsewhere on the vehicle, all of which were attached using cyano glue.

Tracks
The HLBS kit provides the track units as four cast items - two each for the front and rear cab units. There is good detail when viewed from the outside but the inner faces are solid resin and lack any detail whatsoever. This is another of those areas where a compromise was accepted. Short of building the units from scratch, the level of detail was never going to be fully realistic and once painted and fixed into place, the existing track units would look pretty good.

Painting
Well, there's only one paint scheme and it's overall Desert Tan. That said, it's actually a really nice colour to weather and work with so there are compensations.

The first stage is to give the entire model a good undercoat. Halford's Grey primer, straight from the rattle can is ideal. Once it had dried, there were a few small blemishes that needed filling and re-sanding, before a second coat of primer was applied. The track units were then sprayed Flat Black. Although not their final colour,the black forms a very useful base for the lighter grey shades to be added later.

The main body and all the other sub-components received an initial coat of Tamiya XF-57 Buff. It's not a perfect match for British Army Desert Tan but by the time it's been glossed, weathered, washed and dry-brushed, it won't really matter. The paint was allowed to dry thoroughly before weathering commenced. The whole vehicle enjoyed a wash of thinned oil paints to bring out the detail. Varying mixes of Burnt Sienna and Lamp Black can be applied to different areas to vary the tonal values. Over this initial weathering layer went the gloss varnish in preparation for the decals.

Markings
No markings are supplied in the kit and whilst  it would be possible to source some from one of the Airfix 1/48 scale kits, most of them would be incorrect for the Warthog. There are also no aftermarket decal sets available as far as is known, so this left a choice of using incorrect markings or creating accurate markings from scratch.

Whilst it isn't something that everyone will have the time or patience to achieve, the latter choice offers the opportunity to create a truly unique model. Clear and white decal sheet suitable for use with inkjet printers is available from various online retailers (typically in the 50p per A4 sheet price range). Where the markings are a strong, plain colour, particularly black, the clear decal sheet is really good. However, where there are multiple colours used, the white decal sheet is better.

Some knowledge of a computer graphics package is helpful, but the software doesn't have to be expensive. In this case an old version Paint Shop Pro was used, but there are other very good programmes freely available for download off the Internet.

Photos of Warthogs were scoured so that suitable registration numbers could be copied. A quick question posted on a well known AFV modelling forum revealed that the correct font for UK registration plates (civil and military) is called 'Mandatory'. This is available as a free, downloadable True Type Font (TTF) via the Internet, so you can install it on your computer and use it whenever you want. 

A number of other markings are commonly seen on Warthogs, mostly warning stencils and temporary call signs. Copies of these were made too. In fact, markings for a whole series of different vehicles were created, including a set of 'T' markings seen on a small number of development or possibly unarmoured examples used for demonstrations and exercises in the UK. This latter option was chosen for the model since it would help to explain the lack of bar armour on the finished example. It also appealed as it would provide a visually different option to a typical vehicle in Afghanistan. Once the markings had been applied, some final weathering was added before a couple of thin coats of flat varnish finished off the process. The headlights fitted and the side and rear lights picked out (if you do it before this point, the flat varnish will kill the glossy finish of the lights). The last few tasks were to glue the track units the body units, wire up the hydraulics and glue the cupola in place over the front cab.

A simple scenic base helped to set off the completed model. A figure from one of the Airfix sets provides a sense of scale and context.

Overall this project provided a welcome change from the usual assembly of a plastic kit. Whilst resin kits are nothing new in the modelling world, modern vehicles in 1/48 scale are rare and modern British examples rarer still. The fact that this kit is aimed at wargamers shouldn't put people off. Whilst it's not entirely accurate, it remains a very good representation of a Warthog straight out of the box and offers a great opportunity to add even more detail if that takes your fancy.

A Rolls in the (Iraqi) Desert

Whilst I'm primarily a 1/48 scale modeller these days, there is always the temptation to investigate interesting subjects in other scales and 1/50 is close enough to my preferred scale to be largely compatible. In the past year I've picked up several 'wargames' models because they cover subjects I can't otherwise get in my scale. Quality varies widely as you might expect but there are a surprising number of good models around and some will happily sit alongside mainstream 'scale' models.

This Rolls Royce Armoured car from Empress Miniatures is one such example. I knew it was underscale by my normal standards, but I kept coming back to it on their website and looking again at the possibilities. Eventually, after several months of procrastination, I bit the bullet and ordered the kit.

Within a week, it had arrived on my doorstep. I had a couple of surprises when I inspected the kit. Firstly there were no instructions and secondly, the vast majority of the parts were white metal with only two pieces (the turret body and central hull unit) being in resin. After some initial panic, a more sober inspection of the parts left me more confident. The lack of instructions was offset by the logical break-down of the parts. A little bit of guesswork and some decent photos of real examples would resolve that. The greater concern was my lack of experience with white metal kits, but that was a challenge I was willing to address.

So, what do you get? That's something of a problem. The spoked wheels and location of the headlamps would imply that the model represents a 1914 Pattern Rolls Royce A/C, but two other features, the taller turret and the offset vision slots in the driver's visor, are indicative of a 1920 Pattern vehicle. However, the production history of the real vehicle is somewhat messy, so a hybrid might be possible. The last batch of 8-10 1914 Pattern vehicles were apparently manufactured with the taller turret and it possible perhaps, that they also had the offset vision slots. The RAF also ordered a number of 'cars' after WWI when the Army initially refused to supply them with vehicles (they later relented). These were referred to as 'Standard Type A' and had the taller turret (and possibly the offset visor) but may have been built on a spoked wheel chassis. Then of course we have a fairly widespread programme of transferring 1914 Pattern armoured bodies off older 'war weary' chassis onto newly built chassis with later features.

You could backdate the model to a 1914 Pattern by altering the vision slots and living with the taller turret. Or you could upgrade it to a 1920 Pattern vehicle by finding (or scratchbuilding) the necessary solid dished wheels characteristic of this variant. The third option is to leave the model as it stands and just enjoy building it into a representative example of the beast - after all, the level of variation in the real vehicles means it could be accurate as it stands for at least one vehicle.

Despite their fame, production figures for the Roll Royce Armoured Car are surprisingly small. It's been suggested that around 100-150 1914 Pattern vehicles were manufactured, perhaps 55 1920 Pattern and maybe 23 1924 Pattern vehicles, plus around 20 additional Standard Type A examples for the Royal Air Force. Thus we are looking at a production run of 250 vehicles or thereabouts. To compound the difficulties, Rolls Royce did not manufacture the armoured cars. All they did was provide the chassis. The armoured bodies were then built up by a number of specialist coachbuilding firms. This was common practice even for RR's civilian sales, where a buyer would purchase the chassis and then have a body built to their own specification.

Rolls Royce armoured cars survived in active service through until around 1942 in ever-decreasing numbers. The last serviceable RAF examples survived until around 1942. A proportion of these had their bodies transferred onto Fordson 4x2 truck chassis around 1940 but some true Rolls Royce Armoured Cars lingered until the very end in North Africa.

Assembly commenced with laying out all the parts and trying to identify them. This proved fairly easy (with a couple of exceptions). Next, each of the parts was gently cleaned up, especially the edges where the parts would mate together. The chassis provides a good starting point for the assembly process and I soon had the axles and engine block glued into place.

The recommended glue for strength is a two-part '5 minute' epoxy adhesive, a material I had little previous experience of. Cyanoacrylate glue will work too, but it lacks strength and the joints tend to be brittle. In several cases I tacked the parts together with cyano, and then flooded the joints with epoxy to provide strength. I suspect I got more epoxy on my fingers than on the model, but that is apparently part of the joy of learning!

Next, I dry-fitted the resin body and rear cargo tray and they both dropped neatly into place. Confidence increasing, I turned to the engine compartment walls and struck my first problem. The side panels were slightly too long compared to the bonnet panels and that meant the radiator didn't fit where it should.

The lack of instructions didn't help and photos of the primed model on the Empress Miniatures website only seemed to confirm the panel length was wrong. At this point I contacted them with a couple of queries and received a very helpful reply. It appears the side panels are indeed slightly too long and also that Empress hope to have some instructions available soon.

  

 Armed with the knowledge that the engine panels were too long (rather than there being an error on my part), I carefully filed them back to the correct length, working slowly and patiently (and checking their fit to the model regularly. I still didn't get the fit quite right but the problem is conveniently hidden by a spare wheel.

Turret

Consisting of just four parts including the Vickers MG, the turret is a combination of resin body and metal roof. A separate roof hatch is included too. For this project, some additional items were also incorporated. Many RAF vehicles had searchlights and an extra MG fitted on a pedestal mount at the rear of the turret roof, usually a Lewis Gun. The searchlight is a 1/35 scale resin item that was found in the spares box, fitted to a copper wire bracket. The additional gun is one of the excellent Lewis Guns from Gas Patch, fitted to a scratchbuilt brass rod pedestal. You could replace the Vickers MG with a Gas Patch item too if you wanted, but the kit item is well detailed for what little of it you see on the finished model. Also added were the rolled signal flags strapped the the sloping turret sides - Brass rod along with small scraps of masking tape provided the raw materials for these.

The Wheels

Already mentioned is the fact that spoked wheels are the most common option for a 1920 Pattern Rolls Royce, but Empress Miniatures took the view that creating them was worth the effort (although apparently it nearly defeated them!). The wheels are supplied in two halves, an 'inner' and an 'outer'. The inner halves are all identical, but there are two types on Outer. Most of the wheels use a spoked outer half, but the inside wheel of the pair on the rear axles are each provided with a half that has no spokes (to help with the assembly of the double rear wheels).

The solution Empress have come up with for the spokes impressed me. It allows the wheels to be cast in white metal whilst at the same time providing a genuine three-dimensional look to the finished wheels. Some filling and sanding was inevitably required along the join line but careful pre-sanding minimised this.

My kit was supplied with an an extra outer half (and one less inner half), leaving me with one mismatched wheel. I contacted Paul at Empress Miniatures by email, explained the problem and within four days, a new wheel unit had arrived on my doorstep - excellent service!

Rather than scrap the two spare 'outers', I cobbled them together to create a third spare wheel. Arguably, you need more because most cars seem to have carried two spares on each side officially (and often more, strapped to other parts of the body and even the turret roof).

When it comes to stowage, contemporary photos show a mix of heavily stowed vehicles and almost 'clean' examples. This is in part due to the way they operated. Much of their operational use was for local patrolling from a permanent base. In the case of the RAF Armoured Car Squadrons, this usually meant an airfield. Throughout much of the 1920s and 1930s, the RAF operated a 'combined arms' policy where armoured cars and aircraft were used to support each other on operations. It was only on longer patrols or when deploying to a new area that the vehicles carried more than the minimum levels of stowage. I decided to add a number of items, some from scratch and others from the spares box. The tow rope on the front suspension 'horns' is braided copper wire, whilst the drum, two and four gallon cans and rolled tarpaulin are Red Zebra and Black Dog items.

The figure is an item from The Fusilier. He is one of a three-figure set that includes two ground crew, both holding up parts of aircraft as trophies. The pilot/officer figure seemed an appropriate character to place alongside the Rolls. Throughout the Inter-war years, a high proportion of officers in the RAF armoured car companies were pilots serving a ground tour, whilst others were former pilots no longer medically fit to fly but still wanting an RAF career. This must have helped foster a close cameraderie and cooperation between the 'cars' and the aircraft squadrons and probably accounted for the high levels of success of this combined approach to their colonial policing role.

Colours and Markings

My plan was to represent an early 1920s RAF 'car' in Iraq. There were a number of reasons for this. In part it provided an interesting counterpoint to recent RAF activities in Iraq and in part because my father spent much of his National Service based at RAF Habbaniya, where some of the armoured car units had been based in the 1930s - tenuous I know, but it's what inspired me to complete the model.

The overall colour is a matter of some debate. Contemporary monochrome images show vehicles in both 'dark' and 'light' overall colours, suggesting that some vehicles were probably Deep Bronze Green (or similar) and that others were a desert sand (or similar) shade. I wanted the 'dark' option as I felt it provided an interesting counterpart to the sand coloured vehicles that people expect to see.

The model was given an initial coat of Halford's Grey Primer to provide a key for the paint and also to highlight any small imperfections in the construction stage and allow them to be corrected.

For the main colour I used Tamiya XF-53 JGSDF Dark Green, with a touch of XF-58 Olive Green added. I felt that the car would have a faded, dusty appearance so I didn't want to go any darker, especially as subsequent washes would darken the shade anyway. With the paint thoroughly dry, I started with the first of those washes, a mix of Burnt Sienna and Lamp Black oil paint thinned heavily with white spirit. This was applied over the whole model initially, before the detail was picked outmore carefully with a slightly darker version of the wash. Some subtle streaking was added down the vertical sides of the hull and turret (too subtle probably as it doesn't really show on the finished model). Next I turned to a bottle of XF-49 Khaki. Using a wide, flat-profile soft paintbrush, I gently started to dry-brush the model, slowly bringing out the raised detail as I worked across the model in stages.

At this point I decided on the final selection of markings to be used. RAF 'cars' were often named, but not all the time. As I wanted to create a generic example of the type, I went with a simple serial number. I also added a pair of RAF roundels to the body. Prior to applying the decals (all found in my decal collection from various sources), the relevant body panels on the model were gloss varnished with Johnson's Klear to help with decal adhesion. After the decals had been added, a couple of coats of Vallejo Matt Varnish were added to hide the glossy appearance of the panels.

Final thoughts

Correspondence with Empress Miniatures indicates that they hope to release other variants of the Rolls, and that the solid, 1920 Pattern wheels are also on the cards. Overall I really enjoyed this project. It challenged me to work with new materials and new adhesives and that added to the satisfaction of completing it successfully. It is a subject that isn't available as a mainstream kit in 1/48 scale and whilst this is strictly speaking a 1/50 scale model, it's close enough to sit comfortably amongst my growing collection of quarter-scale models.

References:

The Rolls Royce Armoured Car

David Fletcher

Osprey New Vanguard No. 189 (2012)

ISBN: 9781849085809

In Every Place - RAF Armoured Cars in the Middle East 1921-1953

Nigel Warwick

Forces and Corporate Publishing Ltd (2014)

ISBN: 9780957472525

Sources:

Empress Miniatures - www.empressminiatures.com

Red Zebra - www.redzebramodels.co.uk

The Fusilier - www.thefusilier.net

Gaspatch - www.gaspatchmodels.com

Panther CLV

When you mention the word 'Panther' to an AFV modeller, they will almost inevitably think about that classic WWII German tank, but it isn't the only vehicle to be named after this denizen of the big cat family. More recently, the British Armed Forces have taken on a Panther - or more correctly, the Panther CLV (Command and Liaison Vehicle). Originally developed by Iveco in Italy and widely used (even by Russia), the Lince (Lynx - that cat connection again), is an armoured utility vehicle, not dissimilar in concept and design to the American Humvee.


The Panther is a modified version manufactured in the UK by BAe Systems and the design has been adapted to suit UK requirements. Some of those changes are not visible, but others are more obvious. The roof is fitted with a remote weapons station (RWS) and, depending on the date of manufacture, either two or three individual crew hatches. On later vehicles, optimised for service in Afghanistan, more sophisticated air filtration and air conditioning systems were added above the windscreen, along with a suite of ECM boxes and aerials on various parts of the bodywork.


In my chosen scale of 1/48, there are very few modern British (or indeed any other nationality) subjects available. The only decent plastic options are the Airfix 'Operation Herrick' series of vehicles and figures. There is also very little available in resin unless you are prepared to look at the wargames community. Although traditionally dismissed by modellers as being basic and often  crude in the past, new technology is driving some fundamental changes to that truism and there are several gaming items that warrant further investigation, so don't dismiss them out of hand.


There are several companies producing 1/48 or 1/50 scale kits that are very compatible, especially if, like me, your primary goal is to produce stand-alone display items. There are inevitable compromises since the vehicles tend to be designed to survive the constant handling and movement of the gaming table. The fashion in gaming circles is for 'heroic' (i.e. over-scale) weapons and the models are generally solid resin (much like the first generation resin kits in the modelling world) but having said that, their designers are still able to produce high quality models that are fairly accurate dimensionally.


Evil Bear Wargames are a new company to me and they only produce two vehicles at the moment, but both are modern British subjects. The first release was an Iveco Panther, whilst the second is an even more up-to-date subject - the Foxhound. Both kits are nominally 1/50 scale  and intended for the '28mm' gaming scale (roughly 1/56, but 'scale' is much more flexible in the gaming world). I had been made aware of the Foxhound through a Facebook group I belong to and pre-ordered it on the strength of the website images. Further investigation of the Evil Bear website brought the Panther to my attention, so I took a risk and ordered one of those too. The Panther duly turned up about a week later and overall, it impressed me. I say 'overall' because there are problems with the kit. The proportions are wrong, so although it looks like a Panther at first glance, more careful study showed that there are some fairly serious dimensional and detail issues.


The overall body is poorly proportioned with the upper section too squashed, which makes the whole vehicle look too wide. Added to that, the wheels sit too high in the wheel arches, which gives it a 'low-rider' appearance. There are also issues with the front grille and the rear lights and body detail, but before you dismiss the Panther out of hand, let me tell what I do like about it.


Firstly, it's a Panther CLV in quarter-scale (near enough) and it's the only game in town if you want one. It's crisply and cleanly moulded and it is well detailed. The kit is straightforward to assemble and for me, provided a great canvas on which to create a more refined example of the Panther. By accepting the dodgy proportions and lavishing some TLC on the model I was confident I could produce a decent Panther to add to my collection.

The first stage was to make some alterations to the basic body moulding. The bonnet and radiator grille do not have the distinctive sloped front of the Iveco and look more like that of a Jeep Cherokee. To reduce the problem (though not eliminate it) the front edge of the bonnet was sanded back at roughly 45 degrees and the inner sections of the radiator grilles had their top edges pared back at a similar angle. Note that the model portrays the later grille pattern with the two centre grilles being larger than the outer pair (earlier vehicles have four grilles of the same size). Another error is that the central grille apertures are spaced too far apart - there should only be a single fillet between the two.  Also removed at this stage were the moulded headlamps and sidelights as these would be replaced with Little Lenses products.

 The real Panther has a large gap between the radiator grille and the front bumper, but the kit does not show this at all. Short of a complete rebuild, there is no easy fix for this. Instead, I ran a razor saw between the two sections to create a clear separation. The bumper also needs its sharp outside edges rounding off to a smoother profile. Either side of the engine compartment are applique armour panels with pronounced bolt detail. These were fitted as supplied, although four of the upper bolts were moved back to match the location of the scratchbuilt bracing bars mounted onto the bonnet.

There are two ECM boxes that fit onto the front edges of the vehicle. These were fitted as supplied, and the aerial sockets were drilled out to accept brass wire aerials. Behind the right-hand box, a radio aerial mount was fitted, whilst behind the left-hand box, a scratchbuilt cruciform sat-com aerial was added. The radio aerials on this model are fabricated from different diameters of brass rod and tube, with the main 'boot' being a section of Contrail plastic tube. Also fitted on the right-hand side is an additional wing mirror, with its distinctive quadrant shape. Moving to the back of the bonnet, the rear corners should be recessed down about 2mm and small vent domes added into the slots. A large cowling was also added to the bonnet, just aft of the two lifting eyes. The moulded lifting rings were removed and replaced with more accurate loops made from plastic rod.

The roof has a later layout with three crew hatches (the earlier version has two) and the kit portrays them as circular. However, they should be 'D' shaped and the rear hatches should sit further back on the roof. With this in mind I sanded away the roof hatches and RWS mounting point until I was left with a flat roof. Onto this were fitted new 'D' shaped hatches, a new RWS mounting plate, CCTV camera unit, radio aerial and some additional ducting.


Two RWS units are supplied in the kit, one mounting an M2 (12.7mm) HMG and the other a 7.62mm GPMG. I've yet to see the M2 mounted on a British vehicle so that meant using the GPMG. However, the GPMG is over-scale so I had to carve it away and replace it with something more in-scale. The ammunition feed chute was also replaced to match up with the gun.


Evil Bear supply the air conditioning and filter units common to this version of the Panther as resin pieces. I replaced the filter box on the edge of the roof (which is too small) with a new one made from a block of thick plastic, grafting the filter ducting from the original part onto the front of the new one. The double unit that fits above the windscreen  was cut into its component parts and only the smaller 'box' used. The other unit was again replaced with a slightly larger scratchbuilt item.

The Panther is supplied with a hard top cover for the rear part of the body. This is fine for an earlier vehicle, but later versions have a canvas cover instead. There is an interim variant that retains the earlier radiator grille arrangement and has a canvas rear body, but the bulk of the vehicles with the canvas cover also have the radiator layout provided on the model. I built a simple frame to carry the cover (not worrying about accuracy because it won't be seen) and then created the cover using foil from a wine bottle. I use this in preference to tissue because the latter can look very rough and over-scale on a vehicle this size. The foil is soft and easily worked. Separate pieces were cut to represent the additional openings and thin strips used to create the straps and tie-downs.


Above this canvas cover sits the ECM platform (or 'picnic table' as one of my friends unkindly calls it!). Evil Bear supply a nicely cast white-metal platform but I was unhappy with some of the detail. A new one was therefore fabricated from plastic card and strip, using the kit part to provide basic dimensions.

Before moving to the rear of the vehicle, the footplate bars were carved away and replaced with new ones fabricated from 1mm brass rod and 'C' channel plastic strip. Whilst we're underneath the vehicle, 2mm thick spacers were fitted into the suspension unit slots to raise the units and get rid of the 'low-rider' look of the kit as supplied. I probably should have used 1mm spacers instead, but realised that too late. The wheels have a good, crisp tread pattern, but the hubs are not very accurate. In keeping with the rest of this project, a simple cosmetic change was made. The Panther's wheels each have a metal ring bolted to the hubs and this was replicated with narrow rings of plastic tube that had been carefully sanded down to a thinner profile.


The rear of the Panther is also in need of alteration. None of the changes I made will create a perfect vehicle, but they do improve the look of it. Start by removing the middle section of the rear bumper and then continue to remove resin to create a recessed area in the rear of the hull. Either side of the recess, remove more of the bumper to create bevelled inner edges. This removes the innermost rear  light on each side, but they are inaccurate anyway, so it's no great loss.

Rear towing shackle points and towing hitch also need to be added. One additional feature added was a rear step. This appears to be a simple assembly of metal pipe that is hinged on the towing shackle points. I've seen it deployed (as per this project) and also folded/stowed in an upright position against the rear body. Also added at this point were the jerrycan holder and a pair of fire extinguisher brackets. The location of the fire extinguishers varies on different vehicles, but it isn't random. The normal location on RAF Regiment examples is the rear of the vehicle, but on other (army) examples, they are often located on the front wings. Whether the latter is army-wide, or whether it is specific to UK demonstrator vehicles is unclear.


The jerrycan holder is more robust than usual and needed to be scratchbuilt. Plastic strip provided the raw material for this and it was built around a Tamiya jerrycan. The final element was the towbar mounted of the side of the Panther - a simple construction of plastic rod and scraps of strip made to look like the original item.


With everything assembled, it was time to prime the model with a coat of Halfords Grey primer. Then a decision needed to be made on a suitable top coat colour. My preference is to use Tamiya XF-57 (Buff), which is slightly light in tone, but darkens nicely as the washes are applied. Once the base colour had dried thoroughly, I started to block in the other major colour areas. The solid windows received a coat of mid-blue, whilst the canvas rear end was painted in a mix of XF-78 (Wooden Deck Tan) with a touch of XF-72 (JGSDF Brown) added. The RWS seems to remain in Nato Green on the vehicles. The tyres, fender extensions and air-con pipe were all painted in XF-69 (NATO Black).

Markings
The Panther kit does not provide any markings, so I created licence plates, tactical markings and a Transformers logo (yes, really) on my PC and printed these onto clear decal film. Similarly, the fire extinguisher placards and various electrical warning stickers were also created on the PC, but printed onto white decal film instead. In the end I didn't use the Transformers logo as it is only seen on the ATDU demonstrator vehicle.

I still have some work to complete on the Panther, not least finishing the windows off, adding headlights and placing the completed model on a small scenic base, but I've thoroughly enjoyed this little project and having picked up Evil Bear's Foxhound kit, I've already started tinkering with that one too!


All images used in this blog entry are copyright John Tapsell. The images of real vehicles were taken at different RAF events over the past few years.

3D Printing - A foray into the unknown

I recently ordered a 3d printed kit from one of the dealers who sells through Shapeways (www.shapeways.com).

Whilst I have mo illusions about 3d printing being of equivalent quality to injection moulded or resin kits at this time, I wanted to gain some practical experience of what is available, rather than just relying on what others say/guess/opine.


Shapeways generally offer products in 3-4 different 'grades' of printable material. The best quality reprodiction and finest printing makes use of a material they call 'frosted ultra detail' (FUD) but this is also the most expensive. Another option is their 'hard strong and flexible' white plastic which still offers high levels of detail but is not as refined in terms of the printing quality. Sellers can offer their products in any/all of the materials as appropriate to their products. In the case of the product I ordered it was only available in the white plastic option

A few days ago, my order arrived. It's a Vickers Light Tank Mk VIC from Mpennock. The product costs £27.90 (+p&p)

The 'kit' consists of just two parts - the lower hull including all detail, suspension and tracks, whilst the second part is the complete turret.

First impressions - crisp detail it looks like a MK VIC. I'm also blown away by the fact that so much of the detail is included as part of a single piece in the printing process.

However, the surface is quite rough - a sort of scale 'non-skid' surface in texture. The turret hatches, being domed, also show the layering of the printing process in a more obvious way than the flat surfaces. You will therefore need to sand down every surface and detail (or replace some of the smaller details).

The suspension is well detailed but the tracks suffer from having ridges that run across the track in place of the guide teeth.

The main armament is rough and will need replacing.

I haven't scaled it out against any plans but it looks about right (and that's all that interests me).

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the tank. It's not perfect, it will need work to bring it up to standard and it doesn't match to likes of the Kengi resin item, but it isn't a disaster.

3d printing isn't going to transform modelling overnight, but it is clearly moving in the right direction and I'm confident that over the next decade or so, we'll start to see printed kits of similar standard to more traditional ones. Where it is already making an impact is through aftermarket manufacturers creating masters in 3d printed form, that they then clean up and cast as resin items. That I think will be the primary focus over the next few years.

John