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.
It has seen action from the Gulf through Bosnia and onto Afghanistan.
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.
AN NBC system protects the crew whilst the imaging system has been upgraded to the Thales Optronics STAG thermal imaging system
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.


PIC10 by paul brickles, on Flickr

PIC9 by paul brickles, on Flickr

image00004 by paul brickles, on Flickr
image00005 by paul brickles, on Flickr

Paul,
Excellent work! Thanks for sharing your build, the detail is amazing. I like the subtle weathering also.
Take care,
Don "Lakota"

This is a work of art!!! Thank you for sharing.

The Warrior is a neglected subject, surely wish someone made a good accurate kit of the vehicle and some of the variants, withouthaving to spend 4 times the kit cost in resin and metal parts.

What is the purpose of the wire at each side? For stowage?

Wow ! Awesome built.

Could you please explain what are the parts above smoke launchers and the part on the barrel mantlet ?

Paul,

This is an outstanding piece of work!
As you may be aware, it features in the latest issue of Military Modelcraft International (part of a larger study of the FV510 Warrior).

For anyone with an interest in Paul's build (and to find out more about the vehicle's development), treat yourself to December's edition of MMI.

Paul Bennett

Thank you , the wires are for foliage

Nikos,

In defence of Academy the Warrior kit isn't that bad at all; as Paul has shown you can produce an excellent model and although he has used etch etc one does not always have to do so to produce good quality models. Good old modelling skills utilising fuse wire, plastic card etc can all help in adding finesse to a basic model.

The Warrior retails for around £25 to £30 in the UK which is not a prohibitive price by any means in my opinion.

Some of the variants are very specialised, others less so; Accurate Armour produce some conversion kits which are not cheap but then again, no more expensive than most resin accessories. Besides, if someone like Bronco or even Trumpeter were to produce a new kit we all know it would consist of a zillion parts and cost around £60 or possibly even more.

Brian

I totally agree that the Academy kit is decent for the price and can be built into a nice looking model OOB but:

- Tracks (cannot stand rubber ones) Friul are the only option I think

- Depending on the version you want to do you need to add details or change driver's hatch, add antennas, etc which mainly cost TIME. A new tooled kit will need far less time to build.

- Gun barrel, cheap after market option from RB

- Photoetch (the Eduard set is pretty cheap) for mesh, grilles etc

I have 3 Academy kits to work with and some Accurate Armour sets to detail them. TIME is my biggest issue.

Thank you all for the feedback, really appreciate it.

Once more, great model to see and superb detail work.

I agree it's a subject that needs to be expanded apon but I think it's to much of a niche market for the big kit producers

Lovely piece of work! Don't you hate to cover up that gun muzzle though? :-)

Handprint and footprint! That's a 'cute' touch!

We NEED a new Warrior! And given the number of odd and one-off and very rare and probably unknown-to-almost-everyone subjects that have been recently kitted, I would have to say that this one can't be more of a "niche" market or subject than many of those others are!

At least this one has been built and used in modest numbers, has a long service history, and has seen action in several places in recent history!

Here's to hoping that a new styrene Warrior - with or without interior and even from Academy - eventually comes out. Sooner would, of course, be better!

Cheers! Bob

An absolutely amazing model. I watched the build process on Modern British Armour SIG and enjoyed it very much.

Well done Paul,
Mario

PS I sent you a PM.

Paul, outstanding work my friend, really looks the part and finished off to a high standard.


Regards

Dan

Very nice finish and great detailing Paul, really love the attention to detail..... small as they may be, the TES kit and the cam net pole holders ..... brings back lots of memories of me fighting with my wet cam nets and building hides for my Chally 1 in BAOR ....happy days

Great work Paul!
Phantastic details and excellent painting/weathering.

Cheers
Walter

Not that this (my memories) add much at all to the thread but I too recall wrestling with camouflage nets - which seemed to treble in weight once wet - especially the older Hessian tape version; coupled with real Hessian (as opposed to the slightly shiny grey plastic stuff which came later) which we had to stow and deploy under the netting, no wonder the roof of my Land Rover buckled a bit.

However, I would suggest there is nothing quite as comfortable as a stowed cam net for sleeping on!

Brian

Hardly see any Warriors & this is a darn good one. Like the subtle weathering as heavy weathering will hide all the details from your hard works.
Cheers
Lee

Hi Paul,

What the others have said - this is brilliant work, both at the building and painting stage.

Jerry

Great piece of work. I was just perusing my stash kit. It has the Accurate Armour update which I was quite disappointed in . The resin parts were quite obviously cast from kit parts, the same knockout pin marks were identical and the kit parts were crisper. Some of the other items were quite well done . I also have the Eduard brass and it is nice. The AA one is also well done but not nearly as extensive. I have a love hate relationship with individual track links so if the rubber bands look reasonable I use them though sometimes they refuse to have any kind of paint stick to them, AFV Club and Academy seem to be the worst, have never had a problem with Tamiya or Revell. And since I build for myself, my choice.