As sure as the machine gun was born it was discovered that airfield protection and convoy escort duties need to be motorized. Better still the company chosen to manufacture this hot box was Rolls Royce. With all the recent surge in 1/32 WWI aviation kits Roden offers a great little incentive to add to the depth of any large scale display.
The sample review kit contains 226 parts. No flash or short shots. Instructions are in a 12 page booklet. Just checking the parts on the trees everything looks square and plumb. Molded in dark green plastic. Note the inner faces of the body are blank so if you open up the access doors with your build you may want to get some rivet head details from your local model railroad shop.
The kit profiles are;
1. Armoured Car Pattern 1920 Mk.I SV-4996, Royal Tank Corps, Derbyshire, used for anti-invasion patrols on 1939. This AC preserved at our days in the Bovington Museum.
2. Armoured Car Pattern 1920 Mk.I, No.1 (AAC) Sqn, Egypt-Iraq, 1940 1943. This AC preserved at Hominstone Museum, UK.
The Rolls-Royce armoured car was first conceived and developed in 1914 and used in World War I through to the early part of World War II. The Royal Naval Air Service raised the first British armoured car squadron during the First World War. In September 1914 all available Rolls Royce Silver Ghost chassis, including their engines whose power had been increased to about 80 hp, were requisitioned to form the basis for the new armoured car. The following month a special committee of the Admiralty Air Department, among whom was Flight Commander T.G. Hetherington, designed the superstructure which consisted of armoured bodywork and a single turret for a Vickers water cooled infantry version machine gun. Since their seem to be some jealousy issues between the RFC & RNAS it was only in 1918 that these vehicles began to show up in RAF service related operations and they seem to be assigned to ex-naval units. An undetermined few also served in BEF convoy escort duties.
The first three vehicles were delivered on 3 December 1914, although by then the mobile period on the Western Front, where the primitive predecessors of the Rolls-Royce cars had served, had already come to an end. Chassis production was suspended in 1917 to enable Rolls-Royce to concentrate on aero engines.
The vehicle was modernized and up graded in 1920 and in 1924, resulting in Rolls-Royce 1920 Pattern and Rolls-Royce 1924 Pattern. In 1940, 34 vehicles which served in Egypt with the 11th Hussars regiment had the "old" turret replaced with an open-topped one carrying a Boys anti-tank rifle, .303 inch Bren machine gun and smoke grenade launchers.
1920 Pattern Mk I - thicker radiator armor and new solid center metal wheels.
Type Armored car;
Place of origin United Kingdom.
Service history In service 1915 to 1941.
Used by United Kingdom Ireland Wars World War I, Irish Civil War, World War II.
Production history ;
Manufacturer Rolls-Royce.
Variants Rolls-Royce 1920 Pattern, Rolls-Royce 1924 Pattern, Fordson Armored Car, Rolls Royce Indian Pattern.
Specifications;
Weight 4.2 tons
Length 4.93 m (194 in)
Width 1.93 m (76 in)
Height 2.54 m (100 in)
Crew 3
Highs: Clean crisp details. Unique subject matter. Topical subject for current climate in WWI equipmentLows: Note the inner faces of the body are blank so if you open up the access doors with your build you may want to get some rivet head details from your local model railroad shop.
Verdict: Excellent kit with a great potential for dioramas and WWI aviation displays.
Our Thanks to Roden! This item was provided by them for the purpose of having it reviewed on this KitMaker Network site. If you would like your kit, book, or product reviewed, please contact us.
About Stephen T. Lawson (JackFlash) FROM: COLORADO, UNITED STATES
I was building Off topic jet age kits at the age of 7. I remember building my first WWI kit way back in 1964-5 at the age of 8-9. Hundreds of 1/72 scale Revell and Airfix kits later my eyes started to change and I wanted to do more detail. With the advent of DML / Dragon and Eduard I sold off my ...
A friend of mine picked up this kit recently and had only 2 bad things to say :
It seemed a bit costly
The detail was "soft"
But this is alot cheaper than buying the Accurate Armour resin kit I guess
I remember the good old days buying a Toko kit for $15.00CAD....sigh..
Here is Squadron's modified version of the Roden box art in their monthly supplament.
The text above the image of the dog says
"Figure and dog not included in the kit."
Here is a bit of fun from the Roden website. Note the Vickers MG is not bored out. If it was a safety cap there should be a small chain hanging from the flash suppressor. Imagine having one of these doing sentry duty on an airfield, in a convoy or passing by a nosed over aircraft.
Word of caution on the instructions. Step 1 - 3, Do yourself a favor and unite the basic engine halves before adding the generator, magnetos, carburetor, distributor cap, plumbing, water and oil pumps. There should be a solid foundation first rather than trying to align the engine halves after everything is attached externally.
As this is an armoured car and even though I want to use it in a diorama with an aircraft I am transfering the thread to the Early Armour section.
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