Copied from the Masterpiece Models website, About Masterpiece Models, “Masterpiece Models manufactures and sells the highest quality resin assembly kits on the market today. Featuring kits for a variety of interests including WWII, Vietnam, Sci-fi, and aircraft bases. We have acquired the rights to a large selection of the Custom Dioramics line that are now available through us as resin assembly kits. Our kits are manufactured at our Vancouver, Washington, USA fabrication and casting shop.”

Meng sure does like to pop up now and then with the unique. This model is a case in point – a model of the single prototype flamethrower jeep developed for the British special services unit referred to as “Popski’s Private Army.” Why this particular concept didn’t take off isn’t really too hard to grasp. Imagine running around behind enemy lines in a completely unarmored vehicle with several gallons of extremely volatile fluids under pressure in tanks at your back. A single stray bullet could really ruin the crew’s entire day, I would think. The only effective way to survive a patrol in this contraption would be with the sincere hope that you have the element of surprise. Otherwise . . .

Meng has made a terrific little kit here of this one-off machine. The only non-styrene addition is the flexible tubing meant to attach the flamethrower gun to the fluid tank. Otherwise this is an extremely straight-forward and enjoyable single evening build.

Bottom Line Up Front

AFV Club continues to rule the Centurion market with its latest offering. This is a very good kit overall. It comes with tasty value-added features like a turned aluminum barrel and photoetch parts. The detail is sharp and the fit is excellent. The kit is marred by some unnecessarily complicated moving parts that make two aftermarket part sets a must if the modeler wants to have a first-rate build.

History

The Centurion is one of those tanks that just will not fade away with time. It just missed major action in WW2 by a few weeks so it’s first real trial was in Korea. This kit faithfully represents the 20-pounder armed Mk. 3 which was fielded in that conflict. This was the version which was still in service (with some modifications to the gun barrel) with the British Army in 1956 during Operation Musketeer, the invasion of the Suez Canal Zone.

For those that be unfamiliar with Scale Aircraft Conversions this handy explanation from Scale Aircraft Conversions website should solve that problem: We (SAC) are currently producing a line of white metal landing gear for 1/24 to 1/72 scale aircraft. Some sets consist of the main gear only while others include the nose gear. Some inaccuracies in the original kit gear have been corrected but the mounting points remain identical to the factory parts. We have not sought to duplicate component parts where the factory plastic parts are reasonably accurate.

Hauler-Brengun is known as a supplier of high-quality detail parts for aircraft, as well as other subjects. Once assembled and painted the bomb provides a very nice addition to an aircraft model.

Package Contents

• Eight resin bomb bodies
• One sheet of photoetch
• One instruction sheet

Instructions

The sheet contains one page showing how the parts are assembled on the bomb (fins, fuse arming fan and bomb rack attachments).

Construction

As you can imagine the parts for this bomb are very tiny. The fins once cut from the PE sheets mount with a butt joint on the aft end of the bomb. The fuse and bomb rack attachments are extremely small, so it is advised as you remove the parts from the PE sheet you cut them while the PE sheet laying on a piece of double backed tape.

All parts were attached with C/A.