Alvis FV 107 Scimitar CVR(T)***FINISHED***

[PeterB]

I don't know about you but when anybody says amphibious landing I tend to think of the D-Day Normany landings - loads of troops and vehicles supported by tanks. The Falklands War was on a much smaller scale and the British Task Force was thrown together in a hurry. It was probably not considered practical to send any Main Battle Tanks (MBT) which at the time would have been the 50+ ton Chieftain and would have taken up a lot of shipping space, and may have been of limited value given both the terrain in the Falklands and ther nature of the opposition, but there were a handful of "tanks" involved - the so called Combat Vehicle Reconnaisance (Tracked) or CVR(T) family Scorpion and Scimitar, together with the Spartan recovery vehicle. Sources vary but my best guess is that B Company of the Blues and Royals sent their 3 and 4 troops, each consisting of a couple of Scorpions armed with a shortish 76mm gun, a couple of Scimitars armed with the RARDEN (Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment/Enfield) 30mm gun, and a Spartan. They landed with the troops and accompanied them to Stanley, fighting all the way and proving rather good at getting up hills etc! I don't believe the Argentinian forces had anything similar so they probably had a nasty surprise.

 

Airfix released a kit of the Scorpion/Scimitar in 1976 I believe and I built one of each - I still have them but the old "vinyl" tracks have, like so many old tank kits of mine, gone brittle and broken up so a while back I bought another one and here it is. They normally claimed their tanks were 1/76 but the original boxing for this says 1/72 whilst this 1986 boxing now says HO/OO ie 1/76 - I believe the same happened with their Crusader which measures out at nearer 1/70 AFAIK!

 

Built from aluminium and powered by a 4.2 litre Jaguar car engine, this 8 ton light recce tank was capable of over 50mph on the road. During and after WWII opinion was divided on whether wheeled or tracked vehicles were best for the recce role - wheeled were quieter and faster and could sneak up on the enemy but had poorer cross country performance, whilst tracked ones were better cross country but noisier and slower, and neither had much armour, proof only against small arms. They were intended to spy out the enemy and perhaps shoot up infantry and soft skinned vehicles before "getting the h*ll out of Dodge" though the 76mm gun on the Scorpion had some anti-armour capability with Squash Head ammo. Like the later Warrior and Bradley APC's they could just about cope with similar enemy vehicles at a push.

 

Pete

Edited April 11, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

Not a lot to look at but I have made a start on the turret - here are the main bits.

As the kit can be built as either a Scorpion or Scimitar there are two barrels and mantlets, but for whatever reason, although the Scorpion mantlet has the box like Image Intensifying night sight moulded on, the Scimitar version has two seperate parts to make it.

 

Here it is glued together though the gun is just a push fit at the moment as I will need to tidy up the seams. Once I have done that I can add the various hatch lids, storage boxes and smoke dischargers.

Pictures indicate that the thicker part of the barrel nearest to the mantlet, which has an opening at the top, presumably for cooling, was wrapped in a cloth cover which I will make up with a bit of tissue.

 

Until around 1955 British Army vehicles were generally painted in the late WWII colours - Light  Stone aka sand for in the desert and SCC15 Olive Drab in Europe, but then the green changed to the old pre-war Deep Bronze Green. In 1971 a new scheme was introduced consisting of "Nato Green" with black disruptive stripes, both colours being very matt infra red reflective paint. In the early 1970's I was working across the road from the former army barracks at Chester Castle, now a military museum, and used to see green/black Land Rovers, lorries and sometimes tanks parked outside. The paint always looked quite faded and the green was quite yellowish in appearance as I remember. This will have my take on the green/black scheme.

 

Pete

[Ptmvarsityfan]

Excellent stuff and quite inspiring!

Cheers, Paul

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Pete, I don't know a lot about AFVs but this looks a handy machine. I've never made a model of one, the idea of tracks puts me off. It looks like you're doing the only one in the GB, at this point anyway. Regards, Jeff.

[PeterB]

I have stuck all the various bits and pieces on the turret and given it a coat of Tamiya Nato Green to see what it looks like.

Not quite as yellow as I remember it but then it was probably faded badly, and this is close to the old White Ensign "Modern British Armour Green" so it will do - probably look lighter once the black goes on. Next up the hull and wheels - my least favorite painting job!

 

Pete

 

Edited April 18, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

I have put together the lower part of the kit, after painting the wheels and tyres - I switched from black to panzer grey a while back as it is probably more realistic for worn rubber, but in any case I am probably going to cover it with "mud" at some point.

The road wheels are very thin and the outer ones glue on to the inners before the whole assembly is glued onto the short axles so I am going to have to be very careful putting the track on to avoid breaking any off. Having got the wheels on I glued together the box consisting of the sides, bottom plate, front and rear plates and the top plate which Airfix have provided - a bit unusual as normally the assembly would glue straight on to the upper hull.

 

I should have taken a couple of pics of all the parts I suppose but I got a bit distracted when my other half asked me to remove one of the cats' presents - don't look if you don't like dead rats!.

https://flic.kr/p/2nhuJyt

Our house is only about 50 years old, but we back on to a row of terraced houses dating back to about 1920 and there is an alley in between which is a bit overgrown - the people in the terrace own it apparently so we do not have access rights, but one or two of our neighbours tend to use it as a dumping ground so I suppose it was inevitable we would have rats. Our old cat was past doing anything about it as she was almost 21 years old when she died, and probably not much bigger that the adult rats we keep being presented with - the last two have been about a foot long including the tail. The current pair are nearly as good at hunting as the first cat we had, and curiously they are not only domestic black shorthairs as he was, but also share a birth date plus or minus 1 day as best we can discover - the vet's paperworks says 1 day earlier than the owner! Maybe it is something genetic about that type of cat as the four in between have been either not interested or too noisy/clumsy to catch anything, but this pair are lethal - one is a good stalker the other rather less so but is very fast and powerful so he keeps knocking pigeons down! At least so far they have not developed the irritating habit the first one had of bringing mice in alive to play with - yet! We are not too happy with them killing birds, but as long as they keep the rats in hand we will live with it.

 

So anyway, once the assembly is nice and dry I will try and work the tracks on.

 

Pete

Edited April 30, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

The tracks are the old Aifix "rubber band" type though I guess it is some sort of plastic. There is a limited amount of stretch but after a few years they go brittle and break, though maybe these will be better as I have painted them with acrylics instead of enamel. They are meant to be joined using a stud and hole, and I seem to remember that before I had CA glue I used the old heated screwdriver blade trick, but the stud on these has not moulded properly and they clearly would have been very tight if they overlapped so I have used a small staple and butt jointed them which made them a bit easier to fit and allowed me to put a little droop in the top run.

And yes, I have put one on the wrong way round but the detail is so small I did not notice until I saw the macro shot above! I have missed out a few pics during the construction because, as with that of Leutnant Gruber in "allo allo" it is a small tank - tiny in 1/76 scale, there are only 65 parts of which 4 are for the Scorpion and not used in this build, and 30 are wheels and tracks, and I did not see the point of pics showing hatch covers, tiny smoke dischargers and the like being fitted. Anyway the upper hull is now on, complete with the drivers hatch.

And here it is with the turret on - just four more bits to add.

 I should be able to finish the paintwork and add stowage and some replacement decs before too long.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

All the bits are on and painted and I have glossed it ready for the decs, once I have made them which will be a fiddle as they are going to be tiny! The green is yellower in real life.

I have removed the Radiac mast on top of the turret as there was no need for a nuclear fallout detector in this campaign, and I have drilled holes ready for the whip aerials and bases.

 

From what little I can gather the part of the Falklands that the landings were made was a bit boggy so I will be putting some hopefully appropriate weathering on once the decs are in place and a bit of stowage added.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

I have added a bit of stowage - not as much as seen on WWII tanks on the march with everything but the kitchen sink, but enough for when combat was expected - 3 "bail out packs" of a haversack and helmet and a couple of tarps/camo netting rolls.

Bit out of focus but you will get the idea. Some touching up to do after I add the decs, assuming they work, and then generally dirtying it up.

 

Pete

Edited May 5, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

The decs are on.

Based on an illustration in the Osprey book, I am modelling 06 FD 97 as it was numbered under the system introduced in 1949 to replace the old census numbers such as T123456 - the FD apparently indicates it was built in 1979/71. Normally the number would also be carried at the front but for security reasons it was painted out as were the bridge classification (10 I think) and the regimental badge which was normally to the right of the gun. Under the reg is the so called convoy marking which it looks like needs a bit of touching up. At night in combat the only light used was a very dim one which illuminated the black and white bands so the vehicle behind could follow.

 

On the turret and starting from the front, barely visible under the smoke discharger is the weight table. Here the crew would chalk in the front axle loading, rear axle loading and all up weight to help loadmasters when being airlifted, but as this arrived by sea the table is blank other than the headers. On the turret side is the normal tactical marking - in this case a red square indicating the senior regiment present (red) and the second Squadron (square)- it belonged to the 3rd Troop, B Squadron, the Blues and Royals. Finally, on the end of the storage box at the rear of the turret is the call sign - 2 - 3 Charlie indicating that this was the least senior of the tanks in 3 troop of the 2nd Squadron. In fact Osprey say it was commanded by Corporal of Horse J C Fisher, and was actually the first tank to go ashore at San Carlos. It was also the first one to open fire on the Argentine defences at Port Stanley, and saw a fair bit of action in between.

 

So, just a little weathering to do - does anybody know what colour the local soil/mud was?

 

Pete

Edited May 6, 2022 by PeterB

[PeterB]

I have added the aerials - judging by photos the mounts moved around a bit during the vehicle's lifetime but this seems about right.

I have also given it a light coat of "dirt" which is where I will probably leave it. So, a quick coat of varnish and I will call it done.

 

Pete

[arfa1983]

7 hours ago, PeterB said:

does anybody know what colour the local soil/mud was?

 

Sort of a blacky brown! 

[PeterB]

Ok, I know the terrain is not right - it is actually the base from the Airfix Waterloo Farm House set, but it does.

 

 

I will post it in the gallery shortly. A nice easy build and quite fun.

 

Pete