Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Nothing to do with SCW, but...

28IGV001
This is Cunningham's M1 Armored Car, an American design that can be considered a likely predecessor to a number of early 1930s similar designs, Russian BAs included! So little does this handsome car to do with Spanish Civil War, certainly; but we at Minairons Miniatures have decided to make it at 1:56th scale anyway.

Such is our daring first bid at starting a new Inter-wars range, linked to Spanish Civil War only in terms of historical period --although consisting of vehicles by no means involved in that preliminary-to-WWII conflict. The reason why is amazingly simple: there are lots of lovely awakward designs out there, waiting for someone to bring them into life! And it would be a pity to miss the opportunity --as long as we are able to deal with it.


Model itself would be 1:56th scale, as said. It would be made of resin mainly (if not entirely), and would consist of the least possible parts allowing to preserve a decent detail level. Cunningham's M1 would be sold by the unit in a Minairons full-coloured box as usual. We're still doubtful whether to complete the kit with a set of decals or not; if such the case, it might consist of something similar to the image below:

If I'm not wrong, the roundel at left was official to Inter-wars USA Army, while the second one was an early, discarded variant --I must admit this latter has a strong Southern flavor to me. Don't you agree? In any case, I'd strongly support including it in such eventual decals set, for it gives a chance to pulp-ish, dystopic or what-if variants.

Minairons Miniatures' M1 Armored Car release has been scheduled for January 2014, although its making has got such a speed that it might be advanced a bit in time. Let's wait and see!

6 comments:

David said...

What was its service history - did it see any combat?

Soldadets said...

No as far as I know. They were in active service until 1939.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Armored_Car

http://www.weirdwwii.com/2013/05/battleground-weird-wwii-m1-armored-car.html

Anonymous said...

Sounds like your range will be strong contenders for the Very-British-Civil-War market.

At least, those that play in the appropriate scale...

Anonymous said...

I like it, very Pulp-y!

Anonymous said...

Just right for A very American Civil War, or invading Canada (War Plan Red) - any hope of a 20mm version?

Soldadets said...

Sure! We have already re-scaled its design into 1/72, but haven't 3D printed it yet, while awaiting ultimate results of its 1/56 version. This latter is about to be cast pretty shortly (first quarter of 2015).