The Set:

While most aftermarket mantlet covers for the AFV Club Centurion kits have been the “conventional” resin or other material mantlet cover which is added to the kit turret, Lionmarc have taken a different approach and provided the complete turret shell with the mantlet cover included with three different turrets in the series.

This first turret is designed for the AFV Club RAAC Centurion Mk.5/1s (kit #AF 35100) and is basically a resin reproduction of the assembled kit turret with the mantlet cover included.

Standard of resin casting is excellent without any blemishes such as air holes or warping with the only cleanup required being small remnants of the casting block on the lower edge of the turret and some fine resin film in the hatch cut-outs and periscope aperture.

The turret is cast hollow like the kit turret and the advantage of having the complete turret in one piece is all the join seams for the upper roof (kit part I18) and rear bracket (kit part I37) and underside bustle fillet (kit part I29) have already been eliminated for you saving a bit of work, the left side port is also included in the casting.

The lower turret ring (kit part I28) is fitted inside the resin turret the same as for the plastic kit turret and this fits perfectly with the rest of the turret assembly for the hatches, side storage boxes and other details is as per kit instructions.

The detail on the mantlet cover has excellent contours but you will still need to modify the contours of the cal.50 fairing in the mantlet the same as the kit mantlet as this has not been altered nor have any other details been added to the turret such as the casting numbers on the gunner’s periscope housing.

Mantlet detail includes the canvas seams and bolted strips around the edges and the co-axial fairing as well as the left side search light mounting applicable to the RAAC Centurions with the kit metal barrel fitting perfectly into the mantlet opening.

Resin turret and hatch parts


Underside of turret with perfect fit of kit turret ring
and blended in detail under the bustle.

Conclusion:

This is a novel idea for providing the Centurion turret with mantlet cover which it does nicely as well as doing all the hard work of filling join seams for you for a quick and easy update for the AFV Club RAAC Centurion kit.

Some may wonder about reproducing the entire kit turret in resin but you still need to buy the full kit to use this on so no one really looses.

Highly recommended 7.5/10

See the Centurion Subjects page for other Centurion related reviews.

References:

Centurion Modern Combat Vehicles:2 Simon Dunstan Ian Allan Ltd. ISBN 0-7110-1063-3	Centurion Universal Tank 1943-2003 Osprey New Vanguard 68 ISBN 9 781841 763873
The Centurion Tank by Bill Munro. Published by: The Crowood Press Ltd ISBN 1 86126 701 0 Hardback, 192 pages	Centurion in action Squadron Signal Publications No.2013 Stephen Tunbridge ISBN 0-88740-341-7

Thanks to LionMarc Model Designs for the review set.