Armored Cars for Colonial-era Gaming

Armored Cars

Early Armored Car
Made from a garage-sale diecast auto and a prescription-medicine vial, this turreted armored car vaguely resembles the early Rolls-Royce vehicles. However, one would not be eager to volunteer for the job of driver. (As if it mattered much -- the early armored cars used boiler plate, which was not proof against rifle bullets fired at ranges shorter than 500 yards.)

Front armor shield and radiator armor doors are made from sheet styrene. This view clearly shows the nasty spokes on this line of toy cars.

Built by David. Figure is a small 25.

The first RNAS (Royal Naval Air Service) pattern Rolls-Royce armored car of 1914.

An evaluation under fire resulted in the Armored Car, Rolls-Royce --Admiralty turreted pattern, (below) late in the same year. The most successful of the early armored cars, this pattern and the similar 1920 pattern, lasted in colonial service until 1941.

These pictures are from one of the Major General's favorite books,
Tanks and other Armored Fighting Vehicles, 1900-1918 by B.T.White,
published in 1970. The John Wood color illustrations of almost 100 different vehicles are both informationally rich and artistically beautiful. No slimy airbrush work or sloppy watercolor here. If this little book is out of print, it's worth having an antique book dealer do a search for it.

Converting other toys is probably not worth the effort now that Reviresco makes kits of early armored cars and other vehicles in 1:72 scale for gaming. There is a wide variety of types and the quality is good.

The Heroica gaming website contains a nice photo-layout on armored cars used in Ireland from 1916-1920.

RETURN to the Motorcars page

RETURN to the Vehicles page

RETURN to the Major General's Page