The 1924 pattern that is. It looks like an interesting models, but even after looking up Rolls Royce websites, I never found out when they were used by the RAF or what they were used for exactly. Base security? I couldn't help but be reminded of reading how US Air Force V-100 cars were used in Vietnam for that specific purpose.

In addition to RNAS and Tank Corps-supplied armoured cars, the RAF had Rolls Royces built to equip its armoured car companies. This was done independently of the War Office. They were designated Car, Armoured, Rolls Royce Type A. Shaped like the 1914 RNAS car, they were fitted with the 1920 turret.
The RAF Armoured Car Companies were part of Britain's Royal Air Force (RAF) based in Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan. They were formed to operate with aircraft squadrons to suppress insurrection and maintain peace in the area in the aftermath of World War I.

Thanks. The car and desert wheels were an impulse purchase became the vehicle was intriguing, and I figured, since armored cars proved of little use in WW1, it was some postwar version.

Hi
Were you aware Armortek released a model of the RR armoured car?
Quite a bit of info in the forum & some amazing builds - http://www.armortek.co.uk/Forum3b/viewforum.php?f=55&sid=e0952cc933776b233b108c19b6b07f93 -

Mal

Armored cars were used successfully in the Middle East & Persia.

See Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Armoured_Car_Company

You might want to look up this book

The author of "In Every Place" makes the point that the RAF and its patrolling armoured cars were put forward as a cheaper option to having a standing army in the area that Britain had been 'mandated' after WW1. The concept was very advanced for the time.

Thanks everyone! I'll see if I can find that book anywhere.

When you think about it, there really was no "interwar" period.

A second recommendation for 'In Every Place' by Nigel Warwick - it's an excellent history but the only place I've seen it available is direct from the RAF Regiment Museum and I can't see it listed there now.

https://www.rafregimentheritage.shop/shop/books

Osprey New Vanguard also do an excellent little book on the RR Armoured Car by David Flethcher - probably easier to obtain than Nigel Warwick's magnum opus.

As noted, the RAF had full responsibility for security in Iraq and much of the British-controlled Middle East for most of the 1920s and 1930s, with no British Army units stationed there. They relied instead on locally raised infantry units with British (RAF) officers, backed up by the Armoured Car Companies. The concept was in part political because the RAF wanted to demonstrate the value of airpower and they were fighting for their very existence in the immediate post-WWI era. Using aircraft to 'project power', paired with highly mobile motorised columns was seen as a way of doing this.

The Armoured Car Companies carried out long range patrols across much of Iraq, Palestine and into what is now Jordan and parts of Saudi Arabia.

In terms of the RR armoured cars themselves. the whole story is very convoluted. Many of the older armoured bodies were transferred to newer chassis as the latter wore out. Therefore it wouldn't be unusual to see an earlier (1914 for example) armoured body fitted to a mid-1920s (or later) chassis.

Rolls Royce never actually supplied armoured cars to the War Office. They only supplied the chassis and engines (much as they did for most of their civilian customers, who then had the bodywork built by another company). The armoured bodies were manufactured by another company to an Admiralty Pattern design.

Regards,
John

One last question: the kit directions recommend a rather dark brownish sand-colored paint, but the picture shows a near-white yellow color. Sum bleaching, or did they have to paint with whatever color was on hand? I have a book which shows color photos of the 1991 Desert Storm conflict vehicles and they are in various tones of sand and yellow too.