1:35 French VBL MILAN

A small armored vehicle with an antitank sting

The abbreviation VBL stands for a light four-wheeled armored vehicle which the French army began introducing at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s as a reconnaissance and liaison vehicle. It weighs around three and a half tons, can swim, its armor protects the crew against splinters and small arms fire, and its dimensions let it get down a lane where a wheeled carrier would get stuck.

The version with an antitank missile carries a launcher on the roof, and an operator who guides the missile onto the target after launch joins the crew. The vehicle thus takes on the role of a hunter of armored vehicles: it drives up, fires from cover and changes position at once, because its own protection allows it no longer firefight. The type went through the Gulf War, missions in the Balkans and operations in the Sahel, and serves in many armies outside its country of origin.

The real subject will please anyone who builds modern vehicles and does not want huge dimensions. The contents are sprues with plastic parts, to which the modeler adds glue, paints and a little patience with the small parts.

Small vehicles and building them

Wheeled vehicles have one tricky point compared with tracked ones: the finished model stands on four points, and if the suspension is glued askew, one wheel hangs in the air. It is best to let the chassis dry on a sheet of glass, where any deviation shows at once. The tires are sprayed separately and fitted only after the body has been sprayed. The finished vehicle is small, yet in a scene with figures it can give the whole setting a sense of scale better than a large tank.