British heavy tank FV221 Caernarvon

The chassis came from the planned A 45 Infantry Support Tank, a project that began in 1944 shortly after that of the A 41 Centurion.

After the end of the war, a "Universal Tank" of the FV 200 series was to be developed.
This 200 series was to use a common chassis for all family vehicles (self-propelled guns, armored personnel carriers, various armored vehicles, etc.).

One of these tank types was to be the heavy FV 201 with a total weight of 55 tons, which was to be armed with an 83.8mm gun. In 1949 it was decided to increase the armament to 120 mm.

As this caused a project delay, in 1952 the FV 201 hull was combined with a Centurion Mk 2 turret (with 17 pounder gun) to become the FV 221 Caernarvon Mark I (the tank was named after a town in Wales).
Eventually twenty-one examples were built with the Centurion Mk III turret (with 20 pounder gun) as the Caernarvon Mk II.

The FV 221 may have originally been intended as the "main battle tank" of the FV 201 series, but with the success of the A 41 Centurion, such a vehicle became obsolete.
The built examples of the Caernarvon were now only used for undercarriage development work as part of troop trials.


Plastic model kit to build a FV221 Caernarvon

Features:
 

• movable single track links
• includes PE parts

1:35 scale

unbuilt / unpainted