Earlier this year I procured from 3D Planner, a 1/35 model of a Belgian Minerva TT; this vehicle was a product of a deal with Land Rover back in the 50s, and the vehicle equipped the Belgian Army in various guises for several years.
3D Planner hope to launch a proper 3D kit at the Belgian IPMS national show “Plastic & Steel” in around two weeks’ time. In my optimism, last March, I’d hoped to set to and wrestle the model I had into something I could show at Plastic & Steel.
The model I have is greatly simplified and was never planned to be a kit. Such was my zeal I was sure I could do something with it, and besides, the kit version was going to be quite expensive; that said, I can’t quite remember what I paid for this version, but it wasn’t cheap, but then, I was under the sway of modellers’ tangentialism (is there such a word?) – or possibly a Full Moon, and my wallet was in the ascendancy.
So, whilst I will not I suspect, given my glacial approach to projects, get anywhere near completion in the two weeks I now have at my disposal, I thought some might be interested to see what I do with it.
As advertised:
As it comes:
First off, as I say, it’s very simple, coming in two parts which sort of click together. The wheels are separate and that’s about it. All other details are moulded on. It’s going to be tricky to add details to the interior given the way it’s designed; I think it might have been best to saw off the roof, but instead I opted to remove the rear, and that took considerable butchery.
The wheels weren’t really detailed well enough at all, so I thought that some Jeep wheels might do the trick so I acquired an ancient Tamiya version. They needed a few mods and I still haven’ finished, but already, in my view, they look a little better.
The butchery, done the hard way of course:
But eventually, something looking a bit better - arguably(!)
And the real thing which I should have posted earlier:
My interest in this vehicle goes back to my first posting at the British Corps HQ; now, as my first posting I had an awful lot to learn. Day to day life was bewildering let alone deployment on exercises. However, and it must have been around 1972 or 73, I was on exercise Summer Sales, the Command Post Exercises (CPX) were always code-named “Sales”, as part of Diamond 2 in the deployed Main HQ, somewhere in a forest near Detmold. I was in the General Staff Branch of Security, known as “G Security” in the staff parlance of the time. I was set up in a long-wheelbase Land Rover and a 9 x 9 tent, together with a Major and my Chief Clerk, a Sergeant.
For whatever reason, the Belgian Liaison officer (from one of our flanking formations, the Belgian Corps) turned up and was positioned next to us. He arrived in a Minerva TT and I think had a trailer; he had a driver who was, not untypical for the time, a conscript soldier. The latter spoke no English whatsoever. The officer did, not surprising for a liaison officer, and also sported a magnificent, large green beret, and this, I found, meant he was from the Chasseurs Ardennais.
Anyway, I found it all interesting; I was always interested in other nations’ kit, and earlier had watched a US contingent Gama Goat with container body, and a 2½ ton office truck manouvere into position, sporting the MASSTER camouflage finish. So, the Belgian Corps Minerva was sufficiently fascinating, and rather obviously, that memory has stayed with me.
I will try and model this kit as that vehicle from way back then; I also plan to populate it, which as ever, will be a challenge – principally because of the dearth of suitable Cold War figures. Anyway, onwards and upwards!
