¹⁄35

British Armored Car Saladin Mk.2

Introduction

The Black Label collection from Dragon already offers a tantalizing range of novel model kits. The latest item is another subject designed to titillate – a 1/35 scale replica of the Alvis Saladin Mk.II FV601(C) armored car. Bearing similarities with the Saracen armored personnel carrier, this 6x6 armored vehicle was widely used by the British Army from 1958 onwards, as well as by many other militaries. Production ended in 1972, by which time 1,177 examples had been manufactured. The 11.6-tonne Saladin featured a turret mounting a 76mm L5A1 gun and a coaxial M1919A4 machine gun, and it was operated by a crew of three. A Rolls-Royce B80 Mk.6A engine powered the vehicle to a top speed of 72km/h. Saladins were widely used in Oman during the Dhofar conflict from 1972-76, as well as in Cyprus (1970s), the defence of Kuwait (1990) and the Sri Lankan Civil War. In British service the Saladin was eventually replaced by the Scorpion CVR(T).

(Extract taken from the Dragon website)

The Kit

The Black Label Saladin MK2 no 3554

I will mention here at the start I am not a rivet counter, but even so I am aware from a number of people that there are a number of inconsistencies with the kit, a big one being with the complete lack of interior detail on the hatches. I am going to be building this mostly OOB, so I can attempt to go over how it goes together and try to pass along any issues, stumbling blocks and general brick walls with the kit.

What’s In The Box

The box art is the usual nice in action shot, but will lead you astray a bit with the kit (it shows a tow rope, barrel cover and top mounted machine gun, all of which are not included in the kit). In the box you get a fold out set of instructions, 6 poly bags containing a total of 237 parts spread across 4 sprues of grey plastic, the upper and lower body, the turret, and a clear sprue. The parts are molded nicely and the details are very crisp; there is a good amount of clean up required for seam lines and some very annoying attachment points. It would be also good at this point to mention that a lot of these are on the vast amount of very small parts that will happily feed your hungry carpet monster.

The rubber wheels are molded out of the same DS rubber that Dragon use for their tracks - they aren't as crisp as you would expect them to be and in my opinion should have just been molded out of plastic like the rest of the kit, which would have made them a lot more appealing. The instructions are the usual fold out sheet with clear diagrams, but compared to the instructions you get in other kits (by Meng for example) they look like something you get in the older Ikea flat pack kits, but they do the job, which is the main thing. First impressions from just getting this kit out of the box, it seems to be an aftermarket company's dream.