This is the other scratchbuilding project I’m working on, and it’s VERY different to a 1/24 Bradley in terms of
size and complexity! It’s a 1/35 Beaverette Mk. III British armoured car. These vehicles were built in the early
40s (1940/41 I think) for home defence, mainly airfield defence (it is named after Lord Beaverbrook, the WW2
minister for aircraft production), and were based on a Standard 14 car chassis (with the same engine, so they weren’t very fast, carrying 2 and a half tons of armour). It really is -tiny-, only about the size of a Mini car (I should have put a figure next to it to give an idea of size), and is probably the third-smallest British AFV after the Daimler Dingo and
Vickers-Carden-Lloyd tankette. There are a number in museums, one is at Duxford which I will be visiting on Sunday, I’ll
try to remember to take some pictures of it.
The model was based on the Airfix book “Modelling Armoured Cars” which has a lot of scratchbuilding plans (in 1/76 scale,
I scaled it up with a calculator). It’s entirely scratchbuilt from Plasticard except for the wheels and the Vickers MG (left over from a WW1 aircraft kit). As far as I know, there are no commercial kits available for this vehicle.
I also chose it as a scratchbuilding subject as it’s a relatively easy shape (apart from the turret) and because I just
like it - it’s such a clunky, improbable, makeshift design, about as far removed from the usual Tigers and Shermans as you can get I plan to do more scratchbuild projects like this in the future, providing I can get some more 1/35 wheels!
LOL & ditto 2 the above… just don’t get the doggy mad !
very nice 2 see such an unusual subject,
keep those scratchbuilding projects coming &
thanx 4 sharing this one w/ us !
Here’s a couple of photos of the real thing, at the Duxford air museum:
There are a couple of minor inaccuracies and omissions in my model which I discovered
from looking at the real vehicle, for example my model does not have the welding seams
on the hull side, the window shield supports are the wrong shape (the real vehicle has
a ratchet system, my model just has plain rods), and the two small circular objects either
side of the radiator are actually small lights, not rivet heads as I had thought from my reference drawings.
They are a flattened spherical shape and have an electric cable attached. The main headlight
also has a cable, as you can see from the pics.
Still, I think my model is fairly good, many commercial models have at least as many “problems”
Another interesting small detail is that the vehicle actually has the “Standard” manufacturer’s badge
above the radiator grille! I might try to paint this on.
Regarding armament, the one in the museum has a Bren gun, whilst my model has a Vickers gun (originally
from a WW1 aircraft kit). Both of these MG types were used, probably depending on what was available at
the time. Some Beaverettes carried a Boyes anti-tank rifle instead.
BTW if this version (Mk.III) looks flimsy, the earlier ones were even worse - the Mk.II was open-topped and
the Mk.I even had an open back, protected only by wooden planks(!). But the Mk.III was the most common type.
Not sure how many of these vehicles are still in existence… there is one at the Cobbaton military vehicle
museum in Devon (which was my inspiration for building this model) and there is probably one at Bovingdon,
but I don’t know of any others.