SUSPENSION DETAILS:  

I spent one Saturday morning crawling under my own vehicle, this had a three fold objective; to see if my driver had done his first parade inspection and service, to check my own vehicles suspension for any damage and to gather first hand information for my modelling project.  

The suspension consists of the gearbox and transfer case which supplies the power to the wheels by means of eight universal joints and drive shafts. Anti-roll stabilisers are connected to the axials and are bolted to the hull, two for each axial. These would all have to be scratchbuilt. I made them using brass rod bent and cut to the correct length. The gearbox protrudes through the hull approximately inline with the two main doors, it is protected by an armoured box. The gearbox is attached to the wheels by a shaft and a series of universal joints. I scratchbuilt the gearbox and transfer case from plastic card and attached it to the model with superglue.

 One universal joint was made from sprue and dental acrylic castings were made for the other seven. These were attached to sprue to represent the shafts. Anti-roll stabilisers were made from brass rod and superglued to the hull. The main axials were made from aluminium tube with brass rod and attached to the hull, the anti-roll stabilisers were attached to the shafts and the hull as mentioned. This completed the suspension details.

TURRET DETAILS:

The Ratel command uses a 12,7mm Browning Machine Gun as its primary weapon and a 7,62mm Browning as its secondary weapon, this configuration makes place inside the turret for the commander with all his maps and radios and paraphernalia. The Aerographics turret is correct in shape and outline so I removed all details and replaced them with my own scratchbuilt details. I started off with the machine guns, these were made from surgical needles cut to the correct length and inserted into a piece of plastic sprue sanded to the correct profile and length.  Once the guns were glues to the turret I sculpted the gun cover with some epoxy putty and textured the cover by adding creases and a rough texture to the material.