GPM 1/35
Wz.29 Armored Car

Background

The Ursus Mk. 29 armored car was constructed in 1928. The basic Ursus “A” truck chassis was used and up until 1931 13 of these AFV’s were produced. Eight of these Ursus armored cars were used in defense of Poland in Sept. 1939, during the German invasion. These were all in the 11 th Armoured Squadron of the Masovian Cavalry Brigade which was assigned to the Modlin Army.

The car proved it’s value, with good armor and armament, but it also showed its faults.

These were: poor traction and maneuverability. The Ursus Wz. 29’s destroyed a significant number of German armored cars however, especially those that belonged to the Kempf Arm. Div. On Sept. 16 th crews were ordered to leave their last few cars and immobilize, with no further combat.

Tech Data:

• Length: 5.15 m
• Width: 1.85 m
• Height: 2.475 m
• Combat weight: 4800 kg
• Engine: Ursus “A” of 35 hp.
• Max speed: 45 km/h
• Armament: 1 x 37mm cannon + 2 x 7.92 mm machine guns
• Armor: 4 – 10 mm
• Crew: 4

The Kit

This is a limited run, vacuform kit with white metal detail parts. I was produced in the early 90’s and, to my knowledge, the company is now long out of business. GPM Extra Plan only produced 3 different kits. Two of them were armored cars and the third one was a armored rail car.

I was at a IPMS contest, back in the 90’s, and I picked up two of these GPM kits very inexpensively ($4.00 each) from a fellow that was selling stuff from his private collection at one of the vendor’s tables. Just could not pass up a bargain and these odd-ball looking armored cars appealed to me.

The kit comes in an end-opening type of box. It is a generic white box with a sheet fastened to it with the box art printed on that. The box art shows a finished model from the kit made up.

Inside the box are 2 large white vacuformed sheets of parts and 2 smaller ones.

The first large sheet holds the vehicle’s wheels, muffler, differential, leaf springs, gun bases, drive shaft, storage boxes, frame cross-members, rear tow hook, side frames and front axle.

A lot of these vacuformed parts are also given in the kit as white metal castings too. These are the side frames with leaf springs attached, the front axle, the gun bases, and the frame cross-members.

The second of the larger vacuformed sheet holds the vehicle’s floor-board, side panels, octagonal turret base, rear panel, nose panel and turret roof with it’s hatch. However, study of actual pictures of the Wz.29 that I found on the internet show that this armored car had a riveted body. No rivets are molded to the body panels in the kit. On the kit’s box art, whoever built the one shown there added the correct rivets. So looks like one will have to purchase a bunch of Grant Line brand conical headed rivets to make this model accurate. But hey…isn’t that what modeling is about?

One of the smaller sheets of vacuform parts holds the side pieces for the turret. The last sheet has just the vehicle’s roof piece.

The white metal cast parts complete the kit. In addition to the ones mentioned above there are 2 x 7.92 machine-guns and the 37 mm Pateaux cannon.

It is nice to see a kit of something other than what the Allies or Germany used in WWII. This kit, with a little work and addition of the rivet pattern, will make up nicely.

No decals are provided in the kit. One photo I found on the internet did show some numerals on the back that vehicle. Otherwise these armored cars were pretty much unmarked. The box art shows a accurate color scheme that was used on these Ursus armored cars.

Conclusion

I recommend this kit to those modelers who have previously tackled another vacuformed armor kit. However, I don’t think this kit would be all that tough for the beginner either.