S and S FV512 Warrior MCRV

To complement my (reduced) Warrior MCV company I needed to get a Warrior Mechanised Combat Repair Vehicle - which would be attached to my HQ Section.

S&S models do a nice little Warrior ARV which fits the bill nicely - and is far as I'm aware the only one out there.  Once again I got mine second hand, and it was missing the machinegun for the mini-turret, so I simply contacted Shaun who sent me one when I picked up my T-55 AVLB - for free.  He's a very nice chap and provides excellent customer service.

Review - and build
I beleive the S&S Warrior ARV is one of their older models and in some ways it shows - especially when you compare it to their new moulds.  Mine was a little worse for wear and I found it easier to cut off and replace all the vision blocks on the mini-turret rather than just try and fix them.  There was also some damage along one side of the vehicle, one of the driving lights was wrecked and some rods along the front needed to be replaced.

Reference pics showed rolled up tarps or nets along the sides of the hull - so with my fairly weak green stuff skills I was able to add rolled tarps to each side to cover any damage.  Again I attempted to use green stuff to fix up the driving light, and after I removed the rods along the front I completely forgot to replace them!  Duh!

The tracks are metal and had to be manouvred a bit to fit properly - but I like them.  A number of other metal peices come with the kit and but looking at online photos it was relatively easy to work out where they go.

The crane (another metal bit - well about 3 bits actually) can be portrayed resting (?) or raised.  The winch head (again ? - my crane knowledge is obviously quite bad!) is designed to show the crane in use, so I cut of the wires and attached new ones to try and match pictures I had with the winch head secured to the hull.

So - overall I think this is a very sexy little kit - an excellent wargaming model.  Apart from being the only one out there - it produces a lovely looking Warrior MCRV (in my opinion) - which will add some nice variety to a Warrior Company.

Here's some pics of mine:

From the front - you can see where I forgot to reattach some rods, the reconstructed light of the right, the new vision blocks on the turret and the tarp along the side.  You can also see the front of the crane and the winch head resting on the hull.

The left hand side - which provides a great view of the crane and the support that gets lowered to the ground at the read of the vehicle.

The right hand side - showing all the cool storgae areas, and a better view of the turret.

The read view - showing the system that is lowered to the ground when the crane is in operation.

Rear top view

Front top view

And finally a comparison rear top view (sorry about the lean...) of the S&S Warrior ARV beside a Revell Warrior MCV.

That's all for now - couldn't find any videos...

Have fun...

Richard