SPA Modeler

I enjoyed reading your history and what a way to pay tribute to what you drove. Bravo! Thank you for your service!

Bish that was a great backstory for this build. I know exactly where you’re coming from about driving an officers track and having to much of the maintenance on your own. You did a super job on this build!!!! And I love how you posed this one with you FV 432 track at the end.

Thanks guys, it has really brought back memories building this.

Other than the suspension issue, which you can't really see with the wheels and mud over it, this is a nice kit and goes together really well. I am looking forward to seeing how the Meng kit is viewed and if they will back date the kit because as it is, it can only be built as a vehicle in Afghanistan.

Man Bish, these are awesome and the story is great! I never got to serve in the military (bad heart according to them ) so I have to live vicariously through you guys! The builds are really awesome!

Thanks Mike.

All I can do is agree with what the others have said, awesome builds but an even more awesome back story - great stuff. I've always liked the Warrior (and agree it looks better without all the extra bits fitted) and I think you've captured the look of it exceptionally well.

Medicman71 wrote:Man Bish, these are awesome and the story is great! I never got to serve in the military (bad heart according to them ) so I have to live vicariously through you guys!

You and me both Mike - 4 times I tried to get in the Army (and once with the RAF) between the ages of 16 and 21 and although I passed all the fitness tests and aced all of the entrance exams (I was trying to get in the REME), I kept getting kicked off the selection for stupid reasons. I gave up in the end, which was a shame as growing up it was all I ever really wanted to do.

Thanks Stuart.

When i first applied for the army at 15 i was going to go for the REME but only because my dad talked me into going into somthing that would give me a traide. But i failed on medical grounds. When i tried again 5 years later, i opted for what i really wanted, the Infantry.

Not sure when you tried to get in, but it seems a lt more complicated and long winded now that it was then. I handed my papers into the careers office on the 2nd August 1990, the Day Saddam invaded Iraq. I arrived at depot to start trainig on the 13th Oct. Now i hear stories of people waiting a year or more.

I think the first time I applied, it was for 16 year old entry into the then 'Junior Leaders' into the Royal Armoured Corps (or it might have been the Artillery for JL - it was a long time ago ) - I think it was 1992, so not long after you. The last time I applied (I actually got as far as the selection weekend) it was 98. By then it was taking up to 6 months to process an application, and if you failed, you had to wait 12 months before you could re-apply. I tried for the REME as I'd already spent 3 years in collage doing a BTEC in Aerospace Engineering.

So it sounds like you guys don’t just walk into the recruiters office and sign up....

O no, deffinetly not. You have to take a test, have a mdeical and if you pass everything, wait for the date to start your training. A friend of mine who joined up a couple of years before me had to go away for a 2 day selection process. But they had stopped that when i applied. They did bring it back after, the selection weekend Stuart made referance to. I think i must have been lucky, they must have been desperate by the time i signed up.

As i mentioned, took me 2 and a half months, thats pretty fast.