introduction

Although the AFV Club Australian Centurion Mk 5/1 is a highly accurate kit which offers all of the features for the unique variant that fought in the jungles of Vietnam, every Aussie vehicle that served had a canvas cover on the mantlet. While the kit presents an very accurate mantlet right down to the uniquely Australian .50 cal ranging gun, scratch building a mantlet cover would be beyond the skills or motivation of the average modeller.

AFV Club has since released soft rubber manlet covers for Australian and British tanks, although I am yet to see them, and hence can not comment on their accuracy or effectiveness.

the mantlet

Firestorm Models comes to the rescue with an easy and quick fix ... actually, it provides your choice of two Aussie mantlets with covers - one with searchlight mount base (reviewed here) and the other without (FS35141).

Basically, you just clean up the part and install it on the kit's turret using an appropriate glue. The part may need to be formed after heating for a perfect fit, but the end result is very convincing right down to various folds and seams, casting numbers (not present on the kit part) and securing strips with bolts around the edge and machine/ranging gun mount.

conclusion

AFV Club's Centurions are fine, accurate and well engineered kits, but a notable omission on all variants are canvas covers for the turret mantlet which were pretty much standard items on all tanks in service. Firestorm Models offers a quick fix for this.