I’m currently building the Academy 1/35 scale Warrior IFV. This has two colour options, one
a camouflaged example based in Germany, and one a 1991 Gulf War vehicle painted in overall desert sand.
The vehicle has optional side armour skirts, and the instructions only show these on the Gulf War vehicle.
My question is - are these side skirt plates fitted to Warriors based in Europe, or were they only fitted to vehicles
in Desert Storm and OIF? (I know Warriors currently based in Iraq have this armour).
I intend to paint my Warrior as a camouflaged Europe-based vehicle (partly because I like the colour scheme, and partly
because desert colour schemes are so ubiquitous at the minute), and would also like to fit the side armour plates, so I’d like to know if this is accurate.
Warrior side armour is usually removed for peace time duties, but the european camouflage and side armour have been used in the balkans. This might help http://www.jedsite.info/fulltrack/whiskey/warrior_series/warrior-series.html
Thanks very much for the info + link. The photo at the top of the linked page more or less answers my question (it’s the same camo scheme as the one I want to use).
Many KFOR Warriors had the armour - just do a 'Google" search on the Warrior and you will find numerous pics (if you use advanced search and include IFV, MCV or AFV as an exact phrase you will cut down on the supperflous hits).
I guess you got the new IRAQ war kit with revised frontal armour, front tow hook, and stowage etc, not the old one.
Just a few things to be wary of for both kits:
The side armour needs to be moved forward (kit locating pins are set too far back);
The front armour is not quite right size even though it is better than the first attempt
The rear tool box is wrong for the uparmoured Warrior. It should be a flat lid (not the pressed type with the ‘X’) with the hinges and clasps on the opposite sides (the clasps would be behind the armour and imposssible to raise if left that way)
The side armour on the drivers side has a bracket at the front. The directions and locating holes are wrong. It should be turned around and the bolt heads on top should line up where the spare tracks normally go as the bracket was bolted in lieu of the track. Also the armour on that side has wide spacings between the armour plates. There are actually gaps between the armour plates right through to the mounting oplates attached to the hull.
The armour on the offside needs a front bracket. This is actually included in the kit as an “unused” part (C23?) but won’t fit unless the plates are moved forward to the correct position. It fits in front of the two exhaust vents (one square the other triangular) with the bolts facing away from the hull (it also needs a small piece added against the armour plate rear.
Hope you find this useful.
The instruction booklet is dated 1996 so it’s probably the earlier, less accurate kit, alas. It’s second-hand like 95% of my kits, so this isn’t surprising!
Thanks very much for the info on accurising the kit, as well. However I really don’t think I’ll bother with most of these as they are mostly (a) a fair amount of work to do and (b) not really immediately visible unless you’re very familiar with the Warrior (I’ve never actually seen a real one close-up; I’m not sure that there are any based near where I live, in Berkshire). I also don’t have much reference material on this AFV in any of my books. (WW2 and earlier subjects are my main interest)
Still, I’ll try searching for some detailed close-ups of the Warrior to compare them to my kit, if there’s anything obviously wrong that needs accurising I’ll try my best to fix it!
Drawde, whatever floats your boat mate, but the fixes are not as onerous as it first seems. Just trim off the armour locating pins and fill the place on the hull where they go. Use the pic as a guide to reposition them forward.
Make a new tool box lid by using a rectangle of styrene the same size as the the kit lid and the hinge panel that just needs trimming off the lower box part. You can use a sharp blade to remove the hinges and clasps from the kit lid and box to use on the new armoured lid. If it is the old one, you will find that the front armour will sit over the edge of the engine deck and one of the locking toggles and the mounting brackets for the tool rack will need to be trimmed off or the armour will not sit flush to the hull.
Here’s a pic of the GW1 Warrior I am currently working on (It’s not finished yet). My kit suffered bad sink marks, hence the putty you see throughout (the rear was worse!)
To do a Bosnian or later vehicle from the early kit you should add the forward armour tow hook, if you want to use the armour, and add the turret side boxes as well.
Here is a link to PMMS’s review of the 2003 kit, it has pics of the upgraded parts:
http://www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/academy/acd13201.htm
Some SFOR Warrior pics (a sort of Walkaround):
http://henrikc.dk/militaryvehicles/details.asp?autono=79
More on the net, but you need to ferret them out.
My Warrior is now at the painting stage (in a SFOR scheme, with the side armour), however there are a couple of things I’m curious about:
-
There are many parts left on the sprues, including towing hooks, tools, etc. which aren’t listed in the instructions.
Are these all for a different version of the vehicle, or can I use any of them? (If not, they won’t be wasted; I can
always use more bits for my spares box!)
-
What are the “spiky bits” (apologies for the non-technical terminology!) attached to various points on the vehicle?
These the are found on the headlight frames, the turret stowage basket, and the rear side of the hull,
amongst other places. I couldn’t work out what these were supposed to be. The box art shows them as hollow tubes
(obviously the kit parts aren’t hollow as they’re about 0.5mm in diameter) though I don’t know if this is accurate or
not.
Possibilities could be:
-
smoke generators? (definitely not smoke grenade launchers, these are mounted on the turret front)
-
some sort of pyrotechnics system for “wargaming” exercises?
-
attachment points for flags, camo nets or similar?
I was also about to ask if the hatch undersides were painted in the interior colour or not, but just spotted this photo http://www.jedsite.info/fulltrack/whiskey/warrior_series/warfighter/warfighter_005.jpg which shows clearly that they are not.
Many apologies if these are obvious questions, but I really don’t have much info on the Warrior (or on most
modern AFVs for that matter, although I’ve got loads of books and reference material on WW2 and Cold War vehicles).
Also, thanks very much for all your previous help, it’s been very useful - the tip on the side armour bracket was handy (it is in fact impossible to fit the driver’s side armour on if you assemble the kit as per the instructions; it simply doesn’t fit between the track link and the shovel)
Q) There are many parts left on the sprues, including towing hooks, tools, etc. which aren’t listed in the instructions.
A) Check the back page, there is a list of ‘unused parts’ on the lower corner - most are from the duplicated sprue A or left over from the motorization in the original kit. C 23 is actually the side armour forward mount for the offside as said above. The mattock handles and the sledge hammer are woefully depicted (rectangle wood handles and the sledge head is way undersized?) but are added to the rectangular frame at the front of the vehicle. There is a small pic at the bottom of step 10 that shows the paint info for the sledge and handles and where to fit them.
The axe is spare if you add the armour as these pieces go over. The tow eyes are supposed to be fitted to the thread included in the kit (Step 14 middle of the page is a diagram) but these are WW2 US type. The Brits used the same system as the Germans, looped wire clamped at rear.
Q) What are the “spiky bits” (apologies for the non-technical terminology!) attached to various points on the vehicle?
A) These are for poles to be inserted to hold the camo nets away from the vehicle.
Also, thanks very much for all your previous help, it’s been very useful - the tip on the side armour bracket was handy (it is in fact impossible to fit the driver’s side armour on if you assemble the kit as per the instructions; it simply doesn’t fit between the track link and the shovel)
You’re welcome. The track link mounts are where the U shaped armour mount is actually fitted on the real vehicle - the links are left off. The kit part is too thick and they tell you to fit it 180 degrees the wrong way!
There are other things I could have mentioned to accurize it, but you were happy to keep it pretty much OOB.
I have put a coat of paint on mine (MM British Gulf War Light Stone), but here are a couple of pics of the pre-paint model. Mud flaps and tools are left off until main painting is done.
