Piranha PWI-GR

[Jakko]

For my next model, I'm going to be building the middle of these three vehicles:

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On the left is a YP 408, in the middle a Mowag Piranha 8×8, and on the right the only Fuchs 8×8 ever built — the last two with the same turret as fitted to the YPR 765. This was apparently a trial to find an alternative in case the YPR was unsuccessful, but no more than these single vehicles were procured, and temporarily at that.

This model is inspired by a thread on the TWENOT forums in which the Fuchs is being built as a what-if, and somebody else posted the two photos above of the trials. That in turn reminded me that I have the following in my stash:

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An Italeri LAV-AD, from which I had taken one of the missile launchers to put onto my IDF M247; the turret from an AFV Club YPR; and a set of LAV wheels from Trumpeter, which I had bought for when I would build the LAV, because the Italeri wheels are pretty poor, and for €3.95 new I could not really pass these up as a quick improvement. The LAV-AD doesn't appeal to me much anyway, so this way I can make something more interesting out of the kit.

In all, this, plus some more bits from my spares boxes, will become a Piranha PWI-GR (Pantser Wiel Infanterie — Groep, "Armour[ed] Wheel[ed] Infantry — Group") of the Netherlands Army, sometime in the late 1980s as it might have appeared had it gone into service.

[Jakko]

I put the three main hull parts together, and once they were dry, I cut a piece of 1 mm plastic sheet to make a new roof:

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It's still loose here, as is the AFV Club turret ring, but this is the position I will put it in. Piranha turrets tend to be offset to the left because the engine is on the right, and overhang the hull side a little if they're more than very small, so that's what I'll do here too. It won't be as big as on the trials vehicle, because I suspect that's a standard Piranha that Mowag had at hand, fitted with an adapter for the YPR turret. A purpose-built version would probably have a bit smaller adapter ring.

[Gondor]

Looks interesting.

Gondor

[buzzbomb]

And away we go.

Give me an idea of what to do with a spare Spahpanzer Luchs Turret I have floating around

[Jakko]

Suspension installed:

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This wasn't too easy, because the part with the suspension arms for the front two axles doesn't fit overly well. I got it nicely in place using some clamps and a bit of wood, but it would probably have been easier if I hadn't glued the hull halves together already, because there would have been a bit more flex in the lower hull then.

The turret is just the main parts, the details still need to be added.

[Captain Canada]

Nice work so far. Always been a fan of the early LAVs. Especially the 6 wheel types. I like the turret you're building as well.

[Wardukw]

I've gone my time with the Italeri LAV 25 and like alot of other Italeri kits the wheels are terrible...do glad for Trumpeters release of one .
Trumpeters wheels sets are so useful..ive still I think 12 of em in my wheels box 
Cmon Jakko mate..this is looking sweet 😋
More thank ya muchly 

[Jakko]

Always been a fan of the early LAVs. Especially the 6 wheel types.

I must say I think the six-wheelers look better than the eight-wheelers, never mind the ones with ten. But the Dutch Army tested one with eight, so I guess that's what I have to build

I like the turret you're building as well.

Just a standard YPR turret IRL, those were actually developed by FMC for the Dutch Army, and it was tested in both this version and as a mirrored one with the 25 mm gun on the left and the machine gun on the right. Eventually the army decided that it was better to have the 25 mm gun on the right, but I don't know why that was, and the turret then went on to be fitted to AIFVs produced for other countries, too. Somebody also tried to market a BMP-1 fitted with it — there's a photo of that in an old Jane's Armour and Artillery, IIRC — which would make a nice what-if, too.

like alot of other Italeri kits the wheels are terrible...

I built the basic LAV-25 kit decades ago, and already wasn't impressed by the wheels back then.

glad for Trumpeters release of one .

Only slight snag is that these wheels are too modern I think I read that they were first fitted to ASLAVs (the Australian variant of the American LAV-25) as an upgrade, but for this model I will pretend that the Dutch Army went for wider wheels already in the late 1980s, for better off-road performance.

[Wardukw]

Always been a fan of the early LAVs. Especially the 6 wheel types.

I must say I think the six-wheelers look better than the eight-wheelers, never mind the ones with ten. But the Dutch Army tested one with eight, so I guess that's what I have to build

I like the turret you're building as well.

Just a standard YPR turret IRL, those were actually developed by FMC for the Dutch Army, and it was tested in both this version and as a mirrored one with the 25 mm gun on the left and the machine gun on the right. Eventually the army decided that it was better to have the 25 mm gun on the right, but I don't know why that was, and the turret then went on to be fitted to AIFVs produced for other countries, too. Somebody also tried to market a BMP-1 fitted with it — there's a photo of that in an old Jane's Armour and Artillery, IIRC — which would make a nice what-if, too.

like alot of other Italeri kits the wheels are terrible...

I built the basic LAV-25 kit decades ago, and already wasn't impressed by the wheels back then.

glad for Trumpeters release of one .

Only slight snag is that these wheels are too modern I think I read that they were first fitted to ASLAVs (the Australian variant of the American LAV-25) as an upgrade, but for this model I will pretend that the Dutch Army went for wider wheels already in the late 1980s, for better off-road performance.

You find those wheels are also for the Canadian Grizzlies which is where they first came from ..ive built all of Italeris LAV family nothing to write home about describes em pretty well ....hell I got so sick of the wheels I put M60 tank tracks on one ..fact the same version as yours originally was 😆

[Jakko]

This is my second LAV kit (of any brand), and if I build one again it will probably be one of the Canadian six-wheelers instead.

Anyway, after a good deal of searching for a suitable riser for the turret, which I wanted to have a conical shape because that's what you see on Piranhas a lot, I found one:

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This is a Games Workshop 40 mm wargames base, from which I filed off the texture on top and in which I made a hole for the turret, including the bayonet fitting.

I also scribed a line for the engine deck, between the grilles and the driver's hatch, but you can tell from the putty that I did that wrong on my first attempt

At the back, I added the basic shapes of two passenger hatches:

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These are just rectangles of 0.5 mm plastic card, 15.5 mm wide and 33 mm long. I took the dimensions from Trumpeter's instructions for the Canadian Grizzly, which are on Scalemates — I just zoomed in on them on my iPad's screen so that the hull width matched that of my model, and measured them up.

[buzzbomb]

Yup... Warhammer bases for the win. Used the same in a similar role.

I am liking the shape of this. Is the offset turret from the original vehicle or a "point of difference" mod ?

[Wardukw]

That's a brilliantly simple idea matey 👍
Now I gotta find my pile..ive got heaps of the things and try to remember to use em ..that would be good 😆

I had a mate who's addicted to the Stryker and LAV family of vehicles but can he build a model? Nope ..so guess who's built every available kit you can get 
Does I want to build all again ? ..not in this lifetime I can tell ya 😌
But I do love my 6x6 and 8x8 vehicles so ya never know 😉 🤷

[Jakko]

Yup... Warhammer bases for the win. Used the same in a similar role.

I first discarded it because it looked too small, but on a closer look everything else I could find seemed to be much too big instead.

I am liking the shape of this. Is the offset turret from the original vehicle or a "point of difference" mod ?

The turret is offset to the left on a lot of Piranha variants, probably to balance the engine, for swimming. You can see it very clearly in one of the photos in the opening post of this thread.

That's a brilliantly simple idea matey 👍

As the only real alternative was to cut out most of a circle from plastic card and curve it into a cone, I thought I'd take the easy way out

I had a mate who's addicted to the Stryker and LAV family of vehicles but can he build a model? Nope ..so guess who's built every available kit you can get 

The good part there is that you seem to build models much more quickly than some people do

[Wardukw]

Jakko mate I got to the point I could knock together a Stryker in a day and have it painted and weathered in 3 to 4 ..
If it was equipped with SLAT then thats a week on that part alone...yet one model I did build for him took nearly 3 months ..a Dragon M3 half track with a full PE conversion  ;

[Jakko]

I can't even build a model straight from the box in three months, it seems ... I take my hat off to people who can knock them out at the kind of speed you go at But at the same time, I already don't have any room for the models I do finish, so I guess it's a good thing I take so long

It was pointed out to me elsewhere that the riser I built was very low compared to the real thing, so to get it right, I went browsing through Jane's Armour and Artillery 1985-86 for the entry about this turret that I knew is in there:

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No dimensions, unfortunately, but by measuring in the photo and on the AFV Club turret, I could work out that the "inside" part of the turret needs about 39 mm of height in the hull. Some measuring on the model, then, showed that that room simply isn't there with the riser I have — there is just 39 mm from the top of it to the inside of the hull floor, but there are some tunnels and things on that floor for the drive shafts, which reduce the height inside by about 3 mm. I need to add some height to the riser, then, but the YPR adapter ring that AFV Club supplies (see the first photo above of the built hull) isn't thick enough for that, and would require a good deal of work to remove the bevelled edge it has to fit in the YPR's hull top, as well as to fill the gap along about a quarter of its perimeter. So, back to searching for something usable. Which I did:

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I cut the riser I had from the hull, which was easier than expected — GW's plastic apparently doesn't glue that well with the solvent I use. It's next to the hull here, together with a second wargames base, but this one is by Rackham (which went under over fifteen years ago) for their game, AT-43. This is also 40 mm in diameter, but has a vertical lower half and a bevel above it. By reaming out the GW base, it fits fairly neatly over the other one:

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I'm going to glue them together and then fill the seam with putty. This will give a slightly different appearance than on the trials vehicle, but I shall explain that by arguing that they would have built the production vehicles slightly differently