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Modeller Build Logs
Scammell Pioneer R100 |
| By Alex Hill | | Started: | Sep 18, 2004 | | Updated: | Jan 31, 2005 |
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The Scammell Pioneer must surely rank as one of the most charismatic military vehicles. Having been around in various guises since 1927, many Pioneers are still earning a living as show-mans wagons and recovery trucks, so the design can probably lay claim to the title of longest serving vehicle as well.
This kind of longevity only comes from good solid engineering and strokes of genius from the designers at Scammells’ Watford plant and Gardners’ Manchester engine factory. In many ways it was the fitting of the Gardner 6LW power unit to the Pioneer that made the vehicles reputation for soldier proof reliability. The engine featured advanced (at the time) lubrication and injection systems. Combined with Scammells’ transmission and static, non-pressurised, cooling system (hence the ‘coffee pot’ radiator), Pioneers could be expected to give a hundred thousand miles of trouble free running. Most of Gardners’ competitors were struggling to produce an engine that would pass one third of that mileage without at least needing the main bearings replaced. The attention to longevity didn’t stop there. The winch mechanism is something close to a work of art. At a time when a winch was basically an overgrown cotton reel hitched to the vehicles’ p.t.o, the Scammell employed every trick in the book (to be covered in more detail in later chapters) to ensure the winch rope was never kinked or over stressed.
Truly a magnificent machine with a capacity to invoke a sentimental fondness that means there will probably still be a handful of Pioneers earning their living on (or off!) the road in fifty years time when most of the current crop of M.V’s are relegated to gathering dust in museums.
Which brings me to my (hopefully never-ending) quest to build the perfect 1/35 Pioneer. The kit is of course the excellent Accurate Armour rendition of the R100 artillery tractor. In my BLOG I’ll be adding as much detail to the base model as I can, improving those parts which can be improved upon and making one or two changes just to illustrate the differences which were built in during the Pioneers’ production run. Of course an artillery tractor needs something to hang of the rear hitch, so I’ll be adding Accurate Armours’ 7.2’’ Howitzer.
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| Chapter 11 - First Stages of Howitzer Construction | Jan 29, 2005 |
With the tractor finished, it’s time to move on to the 7.2’’ howitzer. Although, technically speaking, the 7.2’’ was introduced in 1941, it was in fact little more than a re-hashed 8’’ howitzer of WWI vintage and as such it was never a great success in service. The out dated carriage and recoil was never up to the job of controlled firing with modern propellants. The result was a gun, which could be dangerously unpredictable under recoil. To try and improve things ramps and scotches were issued, but even then the full charge which the barrel was designed for could not be used. You have to admire the bravery of the gunners, who could never be quite sure, when the firing lanyard was pulled, where the gun was going to land. These problems weren’t resolved until the introduction of the Mk 6, which was essentially a U.S Long Tom carriage with a lengthened 7.2’’ barrel.
The AA kit of the 7.2’’ is very nicely done and an easy build with very little extra detailing required, but there are a couple of problems. First and most obvious are the instructions. The quality of assembly instructions provided by the resin manufacturers is a constant irritation to me. Accurate Armour are by no means the worst offenders, but with others like Calibre 35 producing really excellent instruction sheets, why aren’t all the firms taking note and realising what can be done to make their customers lives easier. The specific problem with this kit is that a few parts simply aren’t mentioned at all. The only way of finding a home for them is minute study of the slightly blurred photo’s which anyone who has built AA kits will be familiar with.
The second problem is in more of a grey area and is best explained with reference to the main photograph and in set picture below. According to some Military Modelling magazine plans I have for the Scammell and howitzer, with the barrel fixed in the transport lock, there should only be a sliver of metal visible above the tyre when viewed in profile. Of course it’s hard to confirm this with period reference photo’s, as they are rarely taken from a perfect profile position, but the barrel does appear to sit very low between the wheels. I noticed during the dry run stage that, when built standard, there is a good 5mm of barrel visible above the tyre (shown by line ‘b’). Adjusting this isn’t a huge job, it’s simply a case of moving the wheel mounts up the side of the carriage rail a bit. Of course this is a bit of a compromise with accuracy at the wheel mounts suffering to improve the overall dimensions.
Another change to the wheels is the addition of some inner hub detailing between the spokes. This was a fiddly job and the results aren’t perfect. Ideally, the inner hub the inner hub should have a quite heavily domed surface. Initially I tried to reproduce this, but the depth meant losing a lot of definition from the spokes. After a lot of cursing whilst whittling out the Milliput from this failed attempt, I settled on the shallow dome photographed here. As I say, it’s not a perfect job, but it would be difficult to get better results without splitting the wheel and removing a lot of the resin.
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