Combined a gift certificate and sale (love looking for bargains) at Miniature Market to pick up the Warlord 28mm British Armadillo Gun Truck to add to the collection recently.
Historically these were fielded in the post Dunkirk era for airfield defenses and initially mounted rifles and Lewis guns. In the dark days of the period it was pretty much mount some armor on any truck available and build a wooden box on the front of the truck bed that was lined with gravel as protection for the gun crews. Estimating that any German Airborne that would be attacking airfields would be lightly armed this would likely be enough to mount a defense of the airstrips. Later models would be upgraded to carry a 1 pounder quick firing gun.
My work deviated from the Warlord box kit by adding a magnet in the truck bed and mounting the 1 pounder to a cut down 2×2 metal base from Wargames Accessories. Another cut down metal base was curved up at the rear to offer a tailgate and cover the magnet when the 1 pounder was not being used.
Another modification was to mount a single Lewis Gun facing forward over the cab. The directions call for one pointing out each side and that just looked like a problem for both storage and the busy game table. Mounting over the truck cab meant that the barrel of the machine gun would be protected by the cab for both gaming and storage.
With plans on using this truck in more than one era (bending history a bit) a different color scheme was in order, that skips the historical camouflage patter of the RAF but still is close enough to get by. All in all a nice kit to build and the modifications to increase its flexibility were simple enough. Thanks to Dave Schaffner for his suggestions on the mods.
Expect to see this and some other new vehicles on the table in the coming months at our various Game Days.
What’s on your workbench?
