military vehicles for 00 gauge & discounts for members

[sandsmodels]

hi all

found your site after a customer mentioned about suitable vehicles for British  army cold war vehicles and accesories.

i have had a look and have found a few pics and references to our range so i thought i should join and keep an eye out for our models as we like to see what people think ect.

we make a massive range of cold war vehicles including gb ones from light l/rovers to chieftain bridglayers so we are more than likely to have what you need.

whilst these are designed for gamers and are generaly simple metal & resin kits they are accurate enough for most modelers and with a few added details make nice models.

we are a web shop only and due to high demand we are a little slow in getting larger orders out but we have been going since 1986 so have been around the trade for a while.

our webshop is here:-

https://sandsmodels.com/

 and i have added a discount coupon to the shop for a 10% discount on any order for those forum members to use

the code is

rmweb

 

putting that in the coupon box at the checkout will give you the discount on the purchase.

please feel free to mention models which you feel may be of interest in the future as we are always looking at new models although we do have lots more to release.

any questions please ask as enquiries are always welcome,

sales@sandsmodels.com

thanks

shaun

s&s models uk

 

[rob D2]

Good to see you here Shaun !

I've used a fair few of your vehicles - it may be worth contacting Trains4u that have produced a high quality war flat to maybe do something with them as people need to put vehicles on them 

[DCB]

Looks good for scenery but as with the old Airfix 1 : 72 scale they are fractionally tool large for the 1 : 76 OO gauge and as a lot of military vehicles are right on the limit width wise for fitting on OO wagons that 4% or so can make all the difference.  Still a train of  combat vehicles is always impressive no matter whether 1914-18 era to present day or anywhere in between.

[Darius43]

3 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

Looks good for scenery but as with the old Airfix 1 : 72 scale they are fractionally tool large for the 1 : 76 OO gauge and as a lot of military vehicles are right on the limit width wise for fitting on OO wagons that 4% or so can make all the difference.  Still a train of  combat vehicles is always impressive no matter whether 1914-18 era to present day or anywhere in between.

 

Alas I was unaware of this risk when I built several of S&S models’ Alvis Scimitar family of AFVs and so they fitted on my 00 Gauge Warflats with no trouble at all.  Modern MBT-sized vehicles (with the exception of Warriors, which have a special cradle for use with Warwells) would certainly be too wide in both scales but they are also too heavy in any event for UK rail transport.

 

‘

 

 

 

 

 

 

The S&S AFV kits are nicely detailed and easy to build.

 

Cheers

 

Darius

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Darius43

[rob D2]

6 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

Looks good for scenery but as with the old Airfix 1 : 72 scale they are fractionally tool large for the 1 : 76 OO gauge and as a lot of military vehicles are right on the limit width wise for fitting on OO wagons that 4% or so can make all the difference.  Still a train of  combat vehicles is always impressive no matter whether 1914-18 era to present day or anywhere in between.

All the S&S stuff I have built has fitted on the warflats I built from kits with no problems , I haven’t done a warrior so I’m not sure if that would be too chunky , and of course anything bigger than that doesn’t go on rail anyway 

[Edwardian]

Interesting news.  Went to the website to discover that they are 1/72nd, so not ''OO''.  ''20mm'' as a wargaming standard covers a range in my experience, but I suggest is closer to 1/76 than 1/72nd.

 

From my youth I well recall the disparity between models of the same subject in 1/76 and 1/72.  Whereas people varying in height, vehicles of a given type do not very in size and the difference is quite noticeable.

 

The JB Models plastic kits are/were 1/76 IIRC, and I recall Airfix did a Scimitar or Scorpion, again I assume in 1/76. That at least would give you the Alvis chassis. Oxford Diecast have a few older post-War military vehicles, as does Road Transport Images.

 

For WWII, I guess Milicast is the answer. whereas W^D Models for WWI. There is also Matador Models, if you can get them. 

 

There may way be a specialist manufacturer doing more modern AFVs and soft-skins in 1/76, but I am not aware of any.

[ColinK]

I’ve just ordered a couple of vehicles - I’ll be painting them as civilian vehicles.

[sandsmodels]

8 hours ago, rob D2 said:

All the S&S stuff I have built has fitted on the warflats I built from kits with no problems , I haven’t done a warrior so I’m not sure if that would be too chunky , and of course anything bigger than that doesn’t go on rail anyway 

glad it all seems to fit, the difference is very small on the smaller vehicles, our warrior will be too large as it has the gulf war extra armour moulded on it. looking forward to seeing what else you chaps have done with our models, thanks shaun

[PaulRhB]

16 hours ago, DavidCBroad said:

Looks good for scenery but as with the old Airfix 1 : 72 scale they are fractionally tool large for the 1 : 76 OO gauge

I’m not convinced they are too big as in this photo of mine, (from the Fawley branch book as I can’t find the originals), shows the fv432 as wide as the wagon exactly the same as the SandS kit. 
 

 

[phil_sutters]

7 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Interesting news.  Went to the website to discover that they are 1/72nd, so not ''OO''.  ''20mm'' as a wargaming standard covers a range in my experience, but I suggest is closer to 1/76 than 1/72nd.

 

From my youth I well recall the disparity between models of the same subject in 1/76 and 1/72.  Whereas people varying in height, vehicles of a given type do not very in size and the difference is quite noticeable.

 

The JB Models plastic kits are/were 1/76 IIRC, and I recall Airfix did a Scimitar or Scorpion, again I assume in 1/76. That at least would give you the Alvis chassis. Oxford Diecast have a few older post-War military vehicles, as does Road Transport Images.

 

For WWII, I guess Milicast is the answer. whereas W^D Models for WWI. There is also Matador Models, if you can get them. 

 

There may way be a specialist manufacturer doing more modern AFVs and soft-skins in 1/76, but I am not aware of any.

There used to be a finescale resin kit manufacturer called Continental Model Supply Company (CMSC) which made modern era ('70s & 80s) British and US AFVs and softskins in 1/76th and 1/87th scales. They are no longer trading but their stuff sometimes crops up on online sales. It is very detailed although the finer fittings can be a bit brittle.

[Dungrange]

2 hours ago, PaulRhB said:

I’m not convinced they are too big 

 

which perhaps indicates that they are not actually 1:72 scale as advertised.

 

9 hours ago, Edwardian said:

Went to the website to discover that they are 1/72nd, so not ''OO''.  ''20mm'' as a war gaming standard covers a range in my experience, but I suggest is closer to 1/76 than 1/72nd.

 

According to this website http://theminiaturespage.com/ref/scales.html 20mm scale is actually 1:80.5.  Therefore the models can't be both 1:80.5 and 1:72, but if we split the difference it would appear that they may be reasonably close to 1:76 scale as Paul's photographs indicate.

 

I think the problem is that the war gaming scales seem to be defined as 15 mm, 20 mm and 25 mm, which are nominally 1:107, 1:80.5 and 1:64 respectively.  Therefore any model between say 1:72 and 1:90 could arguably be classed as 20 mm scale simply because it is closer to 1:80.5 than it is to either 15 mm or 25 mm scales.

 

Obviously if the S&S Models are close to 1:76, then they may make a suitable load for my new KFA Warflats, which have just arrived from Trains4U.

[PaulRhB]

The Scimitar fv107 is listed at 4.9m long which scales out as 64mm in 1/76.5

 

 

bang on and the width is 0.25 wider than scale at 29mm, so less than an inch. 

[Darius43]

1 minute ago, PaulRhB said:

The Scimitar fv107 is listed at 4.9m long which scales out as 64mm in 1/76.5

 

 

bang on and the width is 0.25 wider than scale at 29mm, so less than an inch. 

Is “The Yellow Rolls Royce” on the Warflat on the left?
 

Cheers

 

Darius

[PaulRhB]

1 minute ago, Darius43 said:

Is “The Yellow Rolls Royce” on the Warflat on the left?

 

[PaulRhB]

Here’s a comparison I did between the S&S Scimitar and a bunch of Hampshire Hog’s Airfix Scorpions a couple of years ago. 
I noted then the S&S one stood fractionally taller but from comments above it seems that’s actually correct in the turret conversion. 

[Darius43]

15 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

 

OK

[Dungrange]

1 hour ago, PaulRhB said:

The Scimitar fv107 is listed at 4.9m long which scales out as 64mm in 1/76.5

 

 

bang on and the width is 0.25 wider than scale at 29mm, so less than an inch. 

 

Thanks - that seems pretty accurate for a 00 'load'.  Interestingly, the Wikipedia page, gives the width as 2.2 m (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV107_Scimitar) but the British Army's website gives the width as 2.24 m (https://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/reconnaissance-vehicles/), so I suppose we could argue that the accuracy depends on the source of the prototype dimension.  Either way, it seems close enough for our purposes and I note according the the Wikipedia page, that each close reconnaissance squadron seems to contain eight FV107 Scimitars, which is just enough to fill my four KFA Warflats.

[PaulRhB]

39 minutes ago, Dungrange said:

 

Thanks - that seems pretty accurate for a 00 'load'.  Interestingly, the Wikipedia page, gives the width as 2.2 m (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV107_Scimitar) but the British Army's website gives the width as 2.24 m (https://www.army.mod.uk/equipment/reconnaissance-vehicles/), so I suppose we could argue that the accuracy depends on the source of the prototype dimension.  

I think it depends when you measured it as they had the wider mudguards for a while. 

[phil_sutters]

3 hours ago, Dungrange said:

 

which perhaps indicates that they are not actually 1:72 scale as advertised.

 

 

According to this website http://theminiaturespage.com/ref/scales.html 20mm scale is actually 1:80.5.  Therefore the models can't be both 1:80.5 and 1:72, but if we split the difference it would appear that they may be reasonably close to 1:76 scale as Paul's photographs indicate.

 

I think the problem is that the war gaming scales seem to be defined as 15 mm, 20 mm and 25 mm, which are nominally 1:107, 1:80.5 and 1:64 respectively.  Therefore any model between say 1:72 and 1:90 could arguably be classed as 20 mm scale simply because it is closer to 1:80.5 than it is to either 15 mm or 25 mm scales.

 

Obviously if the S&S Models are close to 1:76, then they may make a suitable load for my new KFA Warflats, which have just arrived from Trains4U.

Wargames figure 'scales' are notoriously inconsistent. For quite a while ones that are now marketed as 28mm were being sold as 25mm. Part of the problem used to be - I was painting wargames figures a lot in the 1980s & 90s - that the height could be that of a bare headed infantryman or one with a helmet, kepi or bearskin. Another factor was the sculptural style of the figures. Some were slim and neatly moulded, others were taller and more craggy. The fantasy ranges were even more varied, as who was to say what a fictional creature like an orc was height-wise. Generally one kept to one manufacturer to build your army, although sometimes compromises had to be made to include a particular type of unit.  It could be said that there is only a problem when you apply figure 'scales' to the hardware, which is better classified by fractional scales.

[Ian_B]

On 01/07/2021 at 06:26, rob D2 said:

All the S&S stuff I have built has fitted on the warflats I built from kits with no problems , I haven’t done a warrior so I’m not sure if that would be too chunky , and of course anything bigger than that doesn’t go on rail anyway 

The Telegraph reported a successful trial sending a MBT and a range of military vehicles to, then through the Chunnel and back using some 6 axle bogie wagons they had brought from Germany

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/18/army-tests-sending-tanks-channel-tunnel-case-eastern-europe/

These would not have the  same 'go-anywhere' loading gauge as the Warriors on transport cradles on a Warwell, but on a restricted route......

I believe you can get the wagons from Roco.

Ian_B

[Barry O]

These look very nice. As mentioned before most of the kits available on here can travel by Rail in the UK except for the Conqueror, and Centurion (including variants). If you add some chieftain side bins to a FV432/434 they are just outside of UK loading gauge.

 

The Tunnel is to the "berne " loading gauge I believe, which is why the Challenger 2 MBTs sans applique armour fits though the tunnel.. they were designed to fit.. we made up a gauge at Leeds to check them..

 

Baz

[rob D2]

4 hours ago, Ian_B said:

The Telegraph reported a successful trial sending a MBT and a range of military vehicles to, then through the Chunnel and back using some 6 axle bogie wagons they had brought from Germany

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/18/army-tests-sending-tanks-channel-tunnel-case-eastern-europe/

These would not have the  same 'go-anywhere' loading gauge as the Warriors on transport cradles on a Warwell, but on a restricted route......

I believe you can get the wagons from Roco.

Ian_B

Still not too useful unless you model dollands moor, the tunnel or Calais though 

[Barry O]

26 minutes ago, rob D2 said:

Still not too useful unless you model dollands moor, the tunnel or Calais though 

but if you model modern day German Railways they fit just fine

 

Baz

[Fat Controller]

5 hours ago, Barry O said:

These look very nice. As mentioned before most of the kits available on here can travel by Rail in the UK except for the Conqueror, and Centurion (including variants). If you add some chieftain side bins to a FV432/434 they are just outside of UK loading gauge.

 

The Tunnel is to the "berne " loading gauge I believe, which is why the Challenger 2 MBTs sans applique armour fits though the tunnel.. they were designed to fit.. we made up a gauge at Leeds to check them..

 

Baz

The tunnel is a little larger than Berne Gauge, I recollect.

 

[Ian_B]

Is there a map of the UK routes Built to Berne Gauge? The press pictures didn't look like Dollands moor, so I thought they were a little way away from the Chunnel.

Ian_B