In recent years, the Czech Company Attack Hobby Kits has provided multiple WW2 wheeled vehicles for the 1/72 scale market. Among the more recent (2021) releases is the Humber Armoured Car Mk.II. The vehicle has been available from Hasegawa since the 70s, but Attack provides us with a - not perfect - but nice and more up-to-date rendition of the vehicle. While having been released in a plastic-only version, this particular version includes both PE and resin parts.
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| The nice and glossy boxtop |
Historical Background
In search for a quickly-producable armoured car, the British army contracted the company Karrier to design an armoured reconnaissance car based of the earlier Guy arnoured car from 1939. Using an artillery tractor as the base chassis, the Humber Armoured Car (not in fact named the "Karrier") featured a slightly modified Guy armoured body and A two-man turret reminiscent of that used on the Mk.VI light tank. Armament was a long 15mm and one standard BESA machinegun. After about 300 vehicles, the Mk.II version brought a redesigned sloped front and other improvements. Those were the vehicles likely to be encountered in the desert campaigns of 1942. With the Mk.III (also available from Attack) a bigger three-man turret was introduced with the Mk.IV even gaining a 37mm gun. Total production totaled at over 5000 vehicles, making it more numerous than the more advanched Daimler armoured car. The vehicles served in many nations until the 1960s.
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| Preview of the largely assembled model |
The Kit Contents
Inside the box are two plastic sprues in a blueish grey colour, three blocks of resin accessories/wheels, a decal sheet, a PE fret and two very fine metal barrels attached to the back of the instructions.
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| The first plastic sprue |
The first of the two sprues contains mostly hull-parts and the plastic wheels for those who are building the "vanilla" edition of the kit without resin wheels. Being a multi-part-assembly, some car should be taken when building up the hull to minimize gaps and get a good fit. Unfortunately, there is some flash visible and part cleanup is necessary.
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| Closeup of the wheel-details and the noticeable flash | |
On the second sprue one can spot some removed sections and some unused parts hinting at the kit´s modular nature allowing for several variants to be released. The 37mm (?) barrel suggest a possible Mk.III-kit yet to be released. Stowage boxes and the turret will be built with parts from this sprue.
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| The second plastic sprue |
Detail on this sprue is good, although not as sharp as some other recent kits (vespid, TAKOM etc.) in places. Drivetrain-parts are also represented on the sprue which is really nice when compared to the much older Hasegawa kit. Flash is again an issue that has to be fixed by some careful cleaning up of the parts before assembly. Do also note that none of the part numbers are on the sprue and attention should be paid to the instructions during assembly.
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| Details of the stowage boxes |
The included photoetch parts include grab-handles, rearview-mirrors and some sand channels to be mounted on the vehicles rear. This presents not only a nice detail, but also an opportunity for some weathering when representing some battered and well used equipment. The overall quality of the PE is very nice and adds some "sharper" details to the model.
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| The PE fret |
Curiously enough, the Mk.III version includes PE for the fenders, while this version lacks them. Although acceptable, this is somewhat irritating.
Among the included resin parts are items as such as wheels, the un-mantlet, smoke launchers and a very delicate Vickers machinegun. While the details are nice, there are some holes in the wheels that might require fixing. The tire pattern is however way superior to that of the plastic parts and really benefits the model.
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| The resin parts |
Care should be taken when removing the parts from the casting blocks, as the resin as rather brittle and sanding/cleanup should be done with appropriate dust-protection as resin dust is not exatcly the most healthiest ting to inhale!
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| Details of the resin parts. |
The decal sheet includes options for several British vehicles in North Africa. It seems to be of a good quality, but markings an the Humbers in the desert weren´t necessarily anything fancy.
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| The decal sheet |
The instructions are of good quality, although some exact placement of parts may require some dry fitting and checking of reference pictures. The metal barrels are attached to the instruction and are very nicely done.
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| The instructions |
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| The (very delicate!) metal barrels |
Camouflage options are relatively simple as they are mostly yellow brown and just one option includes dark brown stripes. The sand channels, spare tire and flimsy-cans should however provide some visual interest when painted.
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| The painting options |
The Assembled Model:
Assembly of the kit included a good ammount of cleanup and some filling around the hull front, were a sizeable gap appeared. It is however completely possible that these fit issues were "user-error" on my part. As stated perviously, some fiddling was required to find the optimal position for some of the parts. The resin details fit without any problem, but some filling was necessary on the wheels and care has to be taken when clenaing up the machuinegun which is rather fragile. Bending the PE parts was easy for the most part apart from the sand channels that were a bit hard to bend - a bending tool would be recommended to bend them cleanly.
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| Preliminary assembly of the kit |
The metal gun barrels are without doubt a highlight of the kit and together with the resin MG really add a goof ammount of detail to the turret. The only major fixes were done at the hull front, were I usedstyrene and liquid puttly to fill gaps.
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| Top view of the vehicle |
Some details were obviously not attached for ease of painting. I also kept the wheels removeable for the same reason. The hatches are not posebale and can only be modelled in close position and would require some surgery to open up to for example add figures.
Verdict
For a 2021 tooling, the kit has some nice details, however these mostly come from PE and resin parts while the plastic has something of a short-run appearance in places and cannot be directly compared to the "creme" of modern 1/72 scale plastic kits like Vespid and TAKOM do. This aside, the metal and resin parts do significantly elevate the look of the model and enable the modeller to built a proper disply-piece when taking care to work around the shortcomings. Compared to the older Hasegawa offering, this kit comes out as the preferable option and can be recommended to any fan of small-scale armoured cars with a bit of experience.
+ resin parts
+ metal barrels
+ photoetch
+/- plastic details
- some fit issues
- closed hatches
Overall Rating: 7.5/10
