Tamiya LRDG Command Car & Breda 20mm AA Gun

The Contents

In the box (the grossly under-filled box, my personal bugbear) is 5 sprews, English instructions for the truck, Japanese instructions for the truck, multi-language instructions for the Breda gun, the decal sheet for the truck, and safety literature. The instructions look easy to follow with plenty of illustrations to guide the build along.



The Kit

Those of you that have built Tamiya's LRDG Chevrolet before will have a fair idea what to expect but with a few welcome and some quite unwelcome additions.

To start with is the Tamiya LRDG Chevrolet, consisting of 4 of the 5 sprues. These have a moderate detail level, and consist of all the parts to build a reasonable representation of a Chevrolet 1533x2 as used by the LRDG as a radio "patrol car" (in the LRDG, Trucks and Lorries were part of Heavy Section) with some dunnage as would be carried by the LRDG. The unfortunate thing with this kit is its age. This is where we reach our unwelcome additions. Because of the age of the dies for this kit, and the wear that time/use has caused there is a lot of flash run out present on the kit. The one thing that does not seem to be present is warping of parts that is usually present in older re-releases of kits. The last thing that is present with this kit is the classic real rubber tyres made in the sand patterned tread. To finish this off is the decals for the vehicle, allowing a choice of two - Tu Tira II or Te Taniwha, and markings for either R or T (New Zealand) patrols.



The second part of the kit is the Italeri Breda M35 20mm AA gun. This sprue is almost 2 sprues in one (referred to as D and L in the instructions). This sprue includes a nice representation of a Breda, with reasonable detail that can be built in either the transit position or in the firing/operational position. There is minimal flash run out, the worst being on the breach and barrel.



In Conclusion

At $55 NZD (around $20-25 USD), this is a cheap way to make a quite unique allied special forces vehicle. And with the addition of the Breda, this makes for interesting diorama possibilities. The buyer may wish to have some modelling experience under their belt in order to get the finish right, so to compensate for the age of the truck kit. A warning for new players who have not used real rubber on model kits before. The rubber tyres included with this kit are very susceptible to perishing and coming apart at the seams. A way to try and make these wheels last somewhat longer is to prevent putting oil based paint or washes on them, as this accelerates the perishing.

An objective rating on this would have to be 7/10 for detail, 5/10 for spew condition of the vehicle, 8/10 for sprew condition of the Breda, and a solid 8/10 for the price, so considering the more spepcific subject matter makes it a good kit to have in any stash.

My Opinion

There are some serious historical issues with this kit. The radio trucks never had Breda's mounted on the back of them, and nor have I found any photographic evidence of radio trucks towing Bredas. The only possibility of a semi accurate here while keeping both kits stock may be to do a diorama where the Breda is being liberated from the Italians. To make this more accurate will require converting the vehicle into a standard patrol car that had the deck converted to take the Breda (also known as a Scorpion). This would require making the right side of the deck flat by not installing the radio housing, and adding some plastic card to fill the holes that the radio would usually take up, and possibly the tall box at the front end of the deck. There are very few pictures of these vehicles in existence, and most of them do not show how they were mounted to the deck (and what images there are showing this are not clear), so some artistic license or a good head for engineering would figure out how this could be mounted. Other than this, I'm really looking forward to getting cracking into this kit. One last thing is the wheels. I will be looking at getting a set of DToys or Tank Workshop resin cast wheels so to get past the issues with the rubber tyres. And the spare rim can use some serious work so to get it looking correct as the centre hole is far too big and cuts into the wheel stud holes.

Excellent in box review!

Regards,

Thanks for the review, my kit has just arrived too. (Thanks for carabinier for the info that there will be no restock of this kit, so get one as long as I could.)
I think I park it for a while because I have to collect the courage to start this surgery, as I want to build the "tail car" anyhow. Knowing that this is a limited reissue of the old Chevy kit I was a little disapponted that Tamiya had not changed anything on the old one (I have one in my stash to compare). I hoped that at least they give a decal version for a Breda car and to change the tyres which were so notoriusly aging and cracking. Maybe for the later issue they are using better materials than twenty years ago.

Hi All

Saúl - Thanks.. that means a lot from a master reviewer as yourself

László Harsányi wrote:Maybe for the later issue they are using better materials than twenty years ago.

László - Sorry to disappoint, but I compared the tyre set from this kit, and from an older release one in the stash, and they are very much the same I really think investing in aftermarket wheels and rims for this model is a must.

To the editing fairy - Thanks for the corrections

Cheers, and happy modelling

Rob

Excellent review Rob ,

Jenny

Thanks for the review Rob!

Erik