Bronco continues to offer some attractive choices with their new
kits, this time turning their attention to the Staghound armored
car. Although built in the US, it never saw service with the US Army
and was destined exclusively for Britain. The kit depicts the later,
and standard, production configuration.
I got a partial test-shot of Bronco's 1/35 scale Staghound courtesy
of Dick Taylor, and then a full test shot so the unpainted model
here shows the original grey test-shot plastic and the olive drab
plastic used in the production kit.
The kit is first rate overall. It
is closer to Dragon in approach than Tamiya, with tons of little
bits. Overall accuracy is excellent and detail is extremely good. I
would quibble a bit about the shape of the bottom of the turret but
this is easy to modify by filing.
The kit instructions are complex,
and I would not recommend following their approach. They suggest
building the right and left side, front panels, etc with all the
detail attached and then combining them to create the hull. This is
a recipe for assembly problems. I built the hull as one assembly
then added all the various subcomponents.
The fit was generally excellent.
Some care has to be taken cleaning up parts as Bronco is using the
current style of sprue contacts which avoid marring the part with
sprue gates but which leave pips on the contact surface.
I built my Staghound up in the markings of the Canadian XII Manitoba
Dragoons. This required some minor modifications like the stub of
the wading trunks under the rear hull overhang and the Canadian
pattern side stowage grates.
The stowage items on the model are
a mix of resin items from various sources including Blast, Ultracast,
and Accurate Armour.
The crew is a mixture of Royal
Models and Alpine.
An article on this with historical
photos of the XII Manitoba Dragoons will appear in Military
Modelling.
