Convoy:s 1/76 Minerva Armoured Car

The Army of Belgium was quite to the forefront when it came to motorization before 1914, and they were the first to field Armoured Cars in any quantity. From the beginning of the war they used Machine Gun equipped motor cars in combat, and already from mid-august many of them were equipped with armour plating, of some 5mm thickness. 

Most of these were based on a standard motor car, model 38CV with a 4 cylinder engine, manufactured by the Antwerp firm of Minerva. (The only modification was that the standard single back wheels were substituted for double ones.) The vehicle was open-topped, lacked entry doors - the crew had to climb in and out over the sides. The engine was of course armoured as well, with two doors in front of the radiotor. Later marks - produced from 1916 - had the fighting compartment fully enclosed. Armament was one 8mm Hotchkiss MG, protected by a semi-circular shield. The total weight was some 4 tons, the maximum speed some 40 km/h. 

Some 25-30 vehicles of model 1914 were built, until the Minerva Factory was overrun by the Germans in October 1914. This AFV was basically sound, and the last vehicles were not withdrawn from the Belgian Army until 1935! (There were later marks of this vehicle that had an enclosed fighting compartment, while some were equipped with turrets or even 37mm guns.) The German Army used four captured Minervas, and some of them were employed - together with other German armoured cars - in the invasion of Rumania. A detachment of Belgian Armoured Cars also participated in the war on the Eastern Front, supporting the Russians until they were pulled out in 1917.

Click on the pictures for an enlarged versions!

Click on the pictures for an enlarged version!

Convoy:s kit of the Minerva comes in a small card-board box, with the contents packed in several ziplock bags.

The kit itself consists of some 30+ parts, most of them in a grey, rather hard resin, but some of them, the with the most delicate details, i.e. the spoked  wheels and the MG, done in white metal. The white metal mouldings are excellent. The resin mouldings are pretty sharp, but many of them comes with quite large amounts of flash.

The assembly is straight-forward, helped by a simple plan - see thumbnail on the left. The only real problem area as I see it is the fighting compartment, that is pretty empty, save for two seats and the MG. (I'm actually not quite sure that there was two seats: on the original Armoured Car, there were only one hatch opening, and that was for the driver. Anyway I guess it will look pretty empty, but as I know of no plans of the interior, any detailings will be so called "informed guesses".

Both the driver figure and the MG are copies. Neither really look the part, the driver being a copy of the tanker from the old Matchbox FT17/Char 1B set, the MG being a copy of 7.7mm Model 92 MG that comes with the Matchbox Japanese Infantry set, it has only a superficial resemblance with a Hotchkiss, and is better replaced.

The colour plans above show a light khaki camo, but other  sources states many of the Minervas of this mark, were painted mid-grey, with either the insignia "S.M." - Service Militaire - or the word "MINERVA" in capital letters painted on the back, front and sides. 

This kit can be ordered directly from Convoys own site.

The offering of Convoy is clearly better than Banderas rather crude Minerva - just compare the wheels and you'll see what I mean. As I see it, the only real problem is the interior, but as I know of no good references for this, we can hardly blame Convoy for it, can we? If you want a Minerva, this is the one to get.