Their new « Joseph Camaret » armoured car is BSM's first full kit in 1/35 . I received it recently as a review sample for the Warwheels website. This first post is a first look at the kit, but it's really the start of a blog, I will post more later once I get started.
Background :
This makeshift armoured car was born out of a project by the French resistance in occupied France.
Two WWI vintage trucks and two Simca 5 cars (the Simca 5 was the licence built French version of the Fiat 500 Topolino) were secretely turned into combat vehicles by fitting armoured superstructures to their chassis and adding armament. Work was done at night while German troops still controled the territory.
The two Simca 5 based vehicles were each armed with a machine gun and a flamethrower. They were named « Joseph Camaret I » and « Joseph Camaret II » to honour the memory of Joseph Camaret, a former leader of the local resistance group who got captured and ultimately died in a German concentration camp.
A very large area was still held by German troops, trapped in the Saint-Nazaire pocket from August 1944 to the 8th of May 1945. The two armoured cars and the two armoured trucks were intended to support a strike from Free French forces from the outside of the pocket. The big French roundels on the vehicles were meant to prevent friendly fire from straffing allied aircraft. However this support role did not materialize and the improvised armour never saw combat. I must say I can't help being a bit skeptical on the effectiveness they would have had fighting seasoned and better equiped German troops, but I guess they were a morale booster for the resistance group.
Some useful photographs of a preserved vehicle are available on the French modelling website « Maquette Garden » :http://maquettegarden.free.fr/Vehicules/AML%20Camaret/index.xml
A lot of good information including period photographs can be found on this website (in French, but you could use an online translator) :http://www.mvcgfrance.org/menu3/Dossiers/DossiersVielJeux.html
In the box :
The kit's contents come well protected in a rather large box considering the diminutive size of the vehicle.
I understand the model was first planned as a comprehensive conversion for the Tamiya Simca 5, but BSM wisely chose to make a full kit instead. Truth is, very little of the Tamiya kit could have been used for such a conversion and the chassis would have had to be drastically modified.
The main photoetch fret (there are also a couple of PE parts packed with the decals) is very impressive and of proper thickness to insure scale accuracy and structural integrity. Photoetch is used for the armour and chassis parts as well as some interior and detail parts.
This is completed by resin parts, I wasn't expecting that many actually. Wheels, steering wheel, chassis, machine gun and many small detail items are included.
The decal sheet provides all the necessary markings (a nice touch for a resin kit) : the large tricolour French roundel and the names « Joseph Camaret I » and « Joseph Camaret II ».
The instructions are very well done, all in colour : a double sided A4 sheet with the parts plan and construction diagrams and a single sided A4 sheet with photographs of the bottom chassis assembled and unpainted, two period photos showing the real vehicles and a couple of colour pics showing the assembled and painted model. However, the double sided sheet is quite difficult to read as the printed diagrams have very faint, thin lines. This is not too much of a problem as the instructions are also available online athttp://www.minor-web.com/resources/Instruccions+350001+Camaret.pdf and appear much clearer on screen. While you're on Minor's website you can also have a look at additional photos of the unpainted subassemblies.
http://www.minor-web.com/NewProducts.html
Studying the parts and instructions, I can give the following comments :
- Some of the resin parts are exhibiting a bit of flash and that will have to be cleaned up, not a huge job but you have to be careful as the parts are delicate !
- The wheels don't have much of a tread detail and I wonder if they're recasts of the Tamiya wheels, but that is not too visible. They would benefit having tyre valves added (as in 99.9 % of wheeled vehicles kits out there).
- A stronger bond of the photoetched assemblies could possibly be achieved by soldering, but I have zero experience in that field so I'll just use regular superglue and accelerator.
- Plates were welded together on the real vehicles : I think weld beads will be worth adding for a more realistic look, either from stretched sprue later textured or from epoxy putty.
- To be frank, not much of the interior will be seen at the end, I would normally skip those interior parts and paint the inside of the vehicle black, but for the sake of completeness of the review I will still build the interior. That is however an option to consider when you assemble the kit.
- No flamethrower is included, I have very little info on it, you may want to scratchbuild something but I think I'll just omit it...
- I'm wary of using decals provided in resin kits, too many nightmares in the past with stuff desintegrating, I'll probably coat them with Microscale Micro Decal Film to make them stronger (as you get two sets of names, I'll try one first to see how it goes without prior treatment).
Summary :
This looks like a professionally packaged, extensively detailed and eminently buildable kit as long as you have some experience with resin and photoetch. Although cautious by nature, I think the improvements suggested before (making custom weld beads, adding air valves to the tyres, reinforcing the decals) will go a long way to get an outstanding model in the end. I might also add some strategically placed reinforcements on the inside, but only construction will tell me if it's really necessary or not. As the saying goes : the proof of the pudding is in the eating!
Anyway if you're interested in oddball armoured cars and don't mind working with photo-etched assemblies this is a great kit to pick !
My thanks go to BSM for the review sample.
Cheers,
Christophe
