¹⁄35

The Warrior

Introduction:

Conceived in the 1980’s – very prevalent on the battlefield and training ground 30 years later.

The Warrior FV510 is an Infantry fighting vehicle which can fall under a variety of classifications (Mechanized Combat Vehicle, Infantry Combat vehicle) but her role is the same – to deliver or extract friendly infantry whilst providing armour protection and direct fire support.

Manufactured by a collaboration of GKN Sankey and Bae Systems Land, the Warrior forms a very active support to both Infantry and the main battle tanks within the British Army.

With a crew of 3 (Commander/Gunner and Driver) and the capacity to carry upto 7 soldiers in the rear at speeds of upto 50mph and armed with a 30mm L21A1 Rardon cannon and 7.62mm Coaxial chain gun, the Warrior has seen action from the Gulf through Bosnia and onto Afghanistan.

As the Battlefield has changed the Warrior has been updated to reflect these changes. Changes ranging from upgraded side armour all the way through to the very much upgraded FV510 TES System and with further upgrades will form part of the backbone of the British Army upto the late 2020’s

The Kit

As a plastic kit in 1:35th there are only two options for the build, both from Academy. The original tooled version (1365) was released in 1996 with a follow up Warrior MVC Iraq 2003 (13201) released in 2004 which was the original kit with additional sprues for the add on armour. The kit as a basis for detailing is superb – there is no interior (Accurate armour do one), but externally for a kit of its age it stands up well.

My initial plan for this kit was to use the basic kit , add the Eduard etch detailing set 35495 a new barrel from RB (35B37)- but as I started to do more research this went out the window and a monster was born!

I wanted to represent a vehicle on Salisbury Plain on exercise.

The basic kit is missing some detailing that can be picked up from pictures in reference books and online.

Pic 1 & 2
Using plastic strip weld beads were added. Fishing line was used to replicate the retaining wires for site added foliage.Additional bolt heads and detailing were added with plastic strip and Mengs Bolt head set.

Pic 3
Detailing to the wheels – using a blade and file I added damage to the rubber wheels – I didn’t want to over do this so kept it minimal.

Pic 4 & 5
As mentioned previously, the Academy kit doesn’t have an interior, again I initially planned to have the vehicle buttoned up, but decided on opening up the turret – given the size of the hatches detailing would have to be added to the turret interior for which I did from ref pictures.

Pic 7 to 10
The detailing on the kit is coming along with additional detailing to the sighting system and smoke dischargers -in respect the sighting system I wanted to show the interior of this so scratch built this. Hatches were detailed as well with etch brass and 2 part epoxy putty to represent the pads. In addition, I added the Bowman system to the side of the turret – again this was scratch built form brass rod and plastic strip.

Pic 11 & 12
Once I was happy with the level of detail added the kit was given a over coat of grey primer (AK One Shot) before a coat of Hataka BS Nato (IIR) Green which was subsequently lightened with white and applied to the top sections of the vehicle for contrast. For these applications I use an Iwata BR Airbrush To add further contrast I apply this lightened paint with a brush to raised areas (Bolt heads etc) this will darken up with weathering.

For the track I reverted to 1/35 Friulmodel ATL 82 Warrior MCV Metal tracks – these were bunished in AK burnishing fluid as pic 11.1- the rubber pads were painted with Nato Black and dusted down.

Pic 13 & 14
Now on with the weathering – on reviewing pictures of the Warrior on Exercise on both Salsbury plain and on BATUS exercise in Canada the weathering as with all vehicles ranges dramatically. So I didn’t lose any of the detail added I decided to keep the weathering relatively simple. Firstly to protect the base colours I applied a coat of AK Colours gloss varnish (This will dull down with the weathering), this allows me to apply the decals without the dreaded carry film showing. On the running gear, rear door and front glacial plate I sprayed a light coat of light sand colour to represent the dust generated by the chalk strata of the Plain, which was followed up by thinning down of Dust pigment which was sprayed through an Iwata CR (0.5 nib) which helps create the splatter effect and build up of dust. In addition to the dust, various areas were picked out with dark wash.

Pic 15 & 16
One thing I like to add to my builds is the personal details – to show movement by the crew across the vehicle – for this I used a hand and boot stencil from Dan Models – for the boots a simple over spray with dust colour, for the hand a spray of dark green to represent a sweaty hand!

Pic 17
For the optics glazing I adopted a glass film that changes colour depenat on how you view it.

Pic 18
As the finishing went on and I reviewed more and more pictures- one area I had missed was the battle simulator system the British Army employ on some exercises. This is a system developed by SAAB and is called the Tactical Engagement Simulation (TES) system and consists a laser transmitter, detector and weapon effects system- think big boys laser quest!. As part of a kit, Meng add this system to their new Husky kit and is not available as a separate add on, so my search turned to Facebook which resulted in a good friend of mine David Robinson kindly sending me a set he wasn’t using on his build for me to include on the Warrior. This was added with wiring from lead wire as the connections.

Conclusion

This build started as a relatively simple build but soon took a life of its own!

I really enjoyed this build and would like to thank the members of the FB page Modern British Armour SIG for their assistance and my partner Anita for her patience whilst I built this!

This is currently featured in Military Modelcraft International