introduction

The Canadian Army sent the tanks into Afghanistan in 2006, after they were requested in battling the Taliban as the LAV-3’s main armament lacked the punch to take on the grape huts from which the Taliban were fighting from. The Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) has been tasked since 2006 to provide the Tank Squadron for each Canadian Battle Group that is deployed into Afghanistan.

CONTENTS

All parts are crisply molded in grey resin, and offer the modeler the chance to show a modern Canadian turret crew .This set from Black Dog, F35015 - Canadian tank crew, is a combination of sets F35013 - Canadian tank crew figure 1 and F35014 - Canadian tank crewman 2.

REVIEW

This set includes two figures that represent modern Canadian tank crews in Afghanistan. Both figures are crisply molded with excellent uniform details. From the fragmentation vests showing 2 different versions of one with, and without, the extra shoulder brassards. One crew figure has two carabineers holding the Velcro straps together, while the other has added an extra pen holder. Both are quite common with vehicle crews as they are in and out of the vehicles and the Velcro wears often, and there is always a need to have a pen handy.

Both crew figures have night vision goggle mounts on the distinctive Canadian helmets. The radio headset microphones are molded separately. The set is listed as Tank Crew, but can be used with any number of modern Canadian vehicles. The few issues that I have picked up are that the uniform shirt is too short and the buttons on the trousers represent an early production uniform, which is an easy fix to represent a later version trouser by shaving the buttons off. And, for Armoured soldiers, the trousers are always bloused, or fear the wrath of the Squadron’s Sergeant Major.

CONCLUSION

This crew set could be used by model builders for many other kits as well. The only thing that is missing is the crew’s personnel weapons that will have to be added. This is a high quality figure set with crisp resin molding.

I ordered these from Fireflymodels in the UK and would like to thank them for their fast service.