Sunday, October 7, 2012

British Cargo Trucks

The British Army had several types of cargo trucks at their service during WWII. Many of them were manufactured by Bedford, a subsidiary of Vauxhall Motors. Bedford built about 66,000 smaller trucks (up to 1500 lbs) and about 100,000 larger lorries of the OX and OY type, which were used in a large variety of roles such as recovery vehicles, tankers, cargo, mobile kitchens and so on. Another popular type of Lorries were the QL series, which had 4-wheel drive and had the driver's cabin above the engine. About 12,000 were built each year between 1942 and 1944. Apparently some even were outfitted with a half-track to give them greater cross country capabilities. In terms of scale models there are not many options. Most of the ones that exist require much assembly. I've only found one that comes mostly assembled. Let's take a look. 

Airfix Bedford RL
This is a plastic model originally produced by Airfix. You can still find the originals on eBay. This one is a new production model which sells for a little less than the vintage models on eBay. I don't know who owns the molds nowadays. It does require a small amount of assembly but it is fairly easy to put together. Unfortunately, after I bought it I realized that this Bedford truck is the RL type which was built from the 1950's onwards. It does however resemble the Bedford QL series enough as the cabin sits on top of the engine, so I've decided to let it serve my WWII troops as they would otherwise have no cargo capabilities. Plus I already have them, so what am I going to do with them!? :-) Being 100% plastic it does not come close to the level of detail of FOV or 21C, but with some amount of paint work and detailing I think that it can actually look quite better.

Click here to take a look at German Cargo Trucks
Click here to take a look at US Cargo Trucks
Click here to take a look at British Armor
Click here to take a look at British Artillery

2 comments: