Alvis FV 603 Saracen***FINISHED***

[PeterB]

I though I would start off with what should hopefully be a fairly simple build.

Back in the 1990's a company called JB Models released a range of small kits of British Army vehicles - Light Tank Mk VI, Bedford lorries, Land Rovers etc. They also included the Alvis FV 601 Saladin 6x6 armoured car and the Saracen APC which shared the same chassis etc. Airfix seem to have taken over the moulds and this was reboxed and released in I think 2005. I built their Saladin last year.

 

During WWII the Brits mainly used relatively small 4 wheeled armoured cars such as the Humber and Daimler though the AEC one was rather bigger as was the  T17 Staghound from the US and they also looked at the very big T18 8 wheeled Boarhound though decided not to use it. The US made a lot of use of the 6 wheeled  M-8 Greyhound and the Germans quickly went from 6 wheel to 8 wheel "heavy" armoured cars which must have made an impression because after the war ended the War Office decided that they needed something bigger than the Daimler and with 6 wheels to improve the cross country performance of what would inevitably be a heavier vehicle. This led to the Alvis FV 601 Saladin, and it was decided to use the same basic running gear for a family of vehicles which eventually included the FV 604/610 Armoured Command Post, FV 603 Armoured Personnel Carrier, the FV651/652 Salamander Fire Engine, the FV 620 Stalwart amphibious load carrier, together with various other versions including an ambulance and a REME fitter's transport. Initially it had been thought that the Saladin would take priority but the outbreak of Guerrilla warfare in Malaya and other places at the end of the 1940's caused an urgent demand for the Saracen, and so the Mk 1 entered service in February 1953, around 5 years before the Saladin as Alvis could not cope with production of both in parallel and their attempt at subcontracting to Crossley failed when that company was taken over and the factory closed, or so it seems.

 

More later.

 

Pete

Edited March 26, 2023 by PeterB

[Mjwomack]

JB Models- there's a name from the past, a bit further into the past than I'd remembered, but Scalemates is more accurate than my memory for sure!

It's going to be small but so cute!

[PeterB]

15 hours ago, Mjwomack said:

JB Models- there's a name from the past, a bit further into the past than I'd remembered, but Scalemates is more accurate than my memory for sure!

It's going to be small but so cute!

Yes, they seem to have existed for about 10 years from the early 1990's and produced some useful stuff. Pity they never did any any of the FV 430 series such as the Abbot and 432 APC. I have built a couple of their Vickers Light Tanks Mk VI, an M113 ACV and the Saladin so far Not many parts and fairly simple builds although the M113 instructions were a bit ambiguous about the "turret" I seem to remember. A reasonable amount of detail which can always be added to and they used to be pretty cheap.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

I have made a start, cleaning up the upper and lower hull parts, the radiator and the rear doors.

And here they are glued together,

I will add a little filler to the joints and tidy them up before adding anything else.

 

Basically it is just a lightly armoured box on top of a Rolls Royce straight eight cylinder B60 Mk6A 5760cc petrol engine driving 6 wheels each with 2 Tracta flexible couplings. The front two axles were steerable and the wheels had initially 11 x 20 run flat tyres, though this was later increased to 14 x 20 to give better grip on soft going - no idea which type are in the kit as there is only one set. It had power steering and an hydraulically operated pre-selector gearbox giving 5 forward speeds and 5 reverse, The top speed on roads was 45 mph and the 48 gallon tank gave a range of 240 miles at 30mph. The basic APC version could carry a driver, section commander and 10 troops though seats and equipment could easily be removed to allow the carriage of stores etc. Unlike the Saladin Armoured Car the engine was front mounted to allow access through a pair of rear doors. It had side escape doors and 3 hatches a side which opened into the passenger compartment, but were not normally used for firing whilst on the move.

 

The specification called for the ability to cross a trench up to 5ft wide, climb over an obstacle up to 1.5ft high, and up a max gradient of 24^o. It had a max fording depth of 3.5ft unprepared and 6.5ft prepared. Armour protection was to be similar to the Saladin, specifically it was to be proof against 0.5" SAAP rounds at a range of 300 yards over a frontal arc of 45^o and against 7.92mm SAAP from any direction. It also had to be resistant to splinters from the equivalent of a 25 pdr shell ground burst at 30ft from the vehicle and a similar air burst at 50ft, and also the crew should be able to survive the explosion of a mine under any wheel containing the equivalent of 20lb of explosive. It should also of course offer protection from both chemical and biological weapons. Info from "The Alvis Saracen Family" by Bill Munro published by Crowood in 2002. In fact the Saladin was designed to still be able to run following the loss of up to 2 of the 6 wheels providing they were not both on the same side and not on the front axle as I recall reading somewhere. Armament consisted of a Browning 0.30 inch MG in a fully rotatable forward turret and a 0.303 Bren on a ring at the rear for AA defence - this was later replaced by the modified L4A4 version of the Bren using 7.62mm NATO standard ammo.

 

Now I have to decide which version I will be building - the kit provides optional parts for the Mk 1, 2 and 3, but more on that next time.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

I added a few more bits. Firstly the triangular "boxes" that went between the wheels.

Then I started on the upper surface.

The ring for the Bren looks rather heavy to me. I also added the drivers escape hatch and the smoke dischargers on the front wings, together with the separately moulded rear wings, and the reinforcement/trunking or whatever it was on the sides at the rear.

 

As I mentioned earlier the Saracen Mk 1 aka FV 603A was rushed into service and inevitably there were some problems. The main one was with the hydraulic systems for the steering and transmission and brakes - pressure for which came from the engine. When it was running at low speed, or had not been in use for some time the pressure was boosted by a set of reservoirs which consisted of rubber "airbags" inside metal cylinders, but these tended to leak, and in hot climates it was found that the hydraulic fluid rapidly "dissolved" the rubber so they had to be replaced with a better system in the Mk 2 FV 603B. At the same time changes were made to the turret which originally had 2 small sideways opening doors at the rear which doubled as a source of ventilation for the interior and a means of access/escape. From the Mk 2 onwards these were replaced with a single drop down door which had the added advantage of providing a seat for the commander a bit like the WWII French tanks.

Mk 1 on left.

 

Initially the engine was cooled by air being drawn into the front of the radiator as in a car, but it was soon found that it got very hot inside the passenger compartment, so for use in warm climates the Mk 3 FV 603C introduced "reverse cooling". Instead of air entering via the radiator and exiting through exhaust trunks at the rear of the engine compartment, the fan was reversed so that air entered through intakes at the rear of the engine and was blown out of the radiator. The rear intakes were armoured and had air filters in them and were nicknames "beehives". This system lowered the temperature quite a bit but the hot air coming out of the front tended to be drawn back into the passenger compartment, and also, when stationary in the desert it created a cloud of sand in front of the vehicle, so a set of deflectors and a rubber skirt were fitted in front of the radiator - a bit reminiscent of the Churchill tanks sent to North Africa. The kit provides skirts and beehives for the Mk 3 but I will be modelling a Mk 2 in normal configuration.

I have therefore added the exhaust trunks together with the headlights and the two mushroom shaped covers for the cooling outlets on the right hand side, together with the tubular thingies n the lower front hull - no idea what they were for. I also glued the top and bottom of the turret together trapping the 30cal mg. - I said it was a simple kit and it is now nearly built!

 

Pete

[CliffB]

A nice start Pete.  I've always had a soft spot for this Alvis family .

[PeterB]

The painting etc instructions are a bit lacking in information.

No confirmation of which Mark they are but as Option 3 is in light stone I guess that is the Mk 3, so on that basis presumably 1 is the Mk 1 and 2 is the Mk 2 I am doing. No dates, locations or unit details and the registration numbers are not a great deal of help as - like the tail numbers on USAF planes, they refer to the order date. My sources suggest that Option 1 - 30 BA 83 was from a batch ordered in 1949, Option 2 - 31 BA 98 1951/52 and Option 3 - 00 BB 40 1954/55. The unit badge for Option 2 seems to be a black cat which suggests that it was being used by "British Forces Borneo" so that would place it somewhere in the period 1962 to 1966 during the "confrontation" with Indonesia over the formation of Malaysia - my Saladin has markings for the Gurkha Brigade in Singapore at about the same time AFAIK.

 

As to paint colour, the instructions say Humbrol Hu75 or in other words Deep Bronze Green which is probably correct. My understanding is that until about 1955 British Army vehicles were painted as they were at the end of WWII - in Europe SCC15, the British Version of OD, in the Middle East Light Stone though there is a bit of an argument about the exact shade - in his colour notes on the MAFVA site, Mike Starmer insists that the post war shade was not the same as the WWII version, but when I asked Jamie at Sovereign Hobbies why he had dropped the post war colour from his Colourcoats range he said that as far as he was concerned all that changed was the BS number so it was exactly the same as the wartime colour! In the Far East near the end of the war the colour apparently changed from SCC13 "Jungle Green" to SCC16 "Very Dark Drab". In 1955 orders were issued for the green to be replaced with gloss Deep Bronze Green, which was fine for ceremonial use but I gather units eventually tended to matt the finish down, particularly when in action. In the early 1970's the Nato Green/Black disruptive pattern was introduced. I have painted mine in Colourcoats DBG glued the wheels to the axles/suspension, and stuck them on the body which I had also painted.

I am inclined to think that the way the suspension is engineered makes the wheels sit a bit high as there is very little clearance above them - the Saladin was the same. Bit of touching up to do then I will get the decs on. That just leaves the rather indifferent Bren gun and the 3 radio aerials - they are a bit thick but at least they did include them - I will replace them with thinner piano wire. If I had been using acrylic paints this would be perfect for a Blitz Build!

 

Pete

[Colin W]

A very interesting thread. I didnt know just how fascinating these little machines were.

[PeterB]

Decs on and replacement aerials fitted so I will get it in the gallery before long.

I have since taken the "Bren" off as it is rubbish - worst part of the kit. I may have a better one in my spares box but if not I won't bother.

 

The Saracen proved pretty good in service but it did have a couple of problems. Firstly, when climbing steep hillsides in Malaya it was found that the shallow flat fuel tank could sometimes cause the engine to be starved of fuel and stop. Secondly the "new fangled" pre-selector gearbox suffered from premature wear to the drive bands that engaged the gears. I remember when they first appeared on new Daimler buses bought by my local authority and was fascinated by them. The selector was just a small box mounted on the steering wheel stalk with a short lever. To change gears the driver moved the lever around the "gate" to the correct position then depressed the clutch at which point the bands switched gear, but the Saracen was nearly as heavy as a fully loaded bus and the bands would stretch over time. There was a mechanism that was supposed to automatically adjust the tension to take up the slack but it did not work very well so a procedure called "toggling up" was introduced. After starting the engine but before moving off the driver was instructed to move the lever around the gate a few times - if he did not do that then the first time he engaged a gear the clutch pedal would shoot back and give his left foot an violent bang apparently.

 

Pete

[PeterB]

Ok, its in the Gallery.

Here is a pic of it alongside the Saladin.

I took this indoors so the colour is a bit out - here is an outdoor one for comparison.

That was a fun build.

 

Pete

[JOCKNEY]

Great stuff Pete

Congratulations mate 

Cheers Pat 

[Robert Stuart]

Looks good Pete, saw your post in the gallery.
Interesting to read about their use in Malaya and Indonesia.

[PeterB]

3 hours ago, Robert Stuart said:

Looks good Pete, saw your post in the gallery.
Interesting to read about their use in Malaya and Indonesia.

Thanks Robert,

 

Actually they were deployed to Borneo when the Indonesians decided they would start infiltrating terrorists to stop it becoming part of Malaysia - I vaguely remember it being on the TV at the time - chap called Sukarno was the head of the Indonesian government until he was overthrown by Suharto, and apparently he wanted to take over Borneo and anywhere else that he could get such as Sarawak, but the Brits decided to put up a fight, and for once managed to win. They even sent HMS Victorious out, together with some Vulcans.

 

Pete

Edited April 2, 2023 by PeterB

[Robert Stuart]

I knew somebody who advised during the Sarawak campaign; one of the few guerilla wars where the guerillas clearly lost.

[PeterB]

My mother's next door neighbour's son lived there for several years otherwise I would probably never have heard of the place - she used to give me the stamps from his letters. Some parallels with the later Falklands war - how to worry the enemies armed forces and his civilian population - send a carrier task force, some Vulcans, and some Gurkhas (and in this case some Aussies and Kiwis as well I believe)!😄

 

Pete