Having moulded 1/35 British and Israeli Centurion tanks, Amusing Hobby has now turned its attention to the Swedish variant, the Strv-104. CHRIS CLIFFORD inspects the contents.
The Centurion has a long history of being adapted and converted by export customers and those operated by Sweden are no exception; the Stridsvagen-104 has its roots in the Strv-81/101/102 Centurion variants of the 1950s-60s. While there was little difference between the ‘101 and ‘102, 80 examples of the latter were modernised with a new and more powerful diesel engine, an upgraded laser rangefinder and improved 120mm-thick armour. Over this sat explosive reactive armour (ERA) as part of the REMO (renovation and modification) package, which also comprised night vision gear, targeting systems, thermal barrel sleeves among other items.
Above: The crisply moulded engine decking is impressive.
Amusing Hobby’s rendition of the Strv-104 is the first-ever full styrene kit (Hobby Fan previously issued a resin conversion set), and it looks splendid. Moulded in sand-coloured plastic, there are 12 runners, working track links that simply click together (no tricky pins or the like here) and there’s even a track tensioning system. Real metal suspension springs, a leng…
