Review - Model 1/72, S&S FV180 Combat Engineer Tractor (CET) Model

The Combat Engineer Tractor (CET) was introduced into service with the Royal Engineers in 1976 it sat within the Support Troop of an Engineer Field Squadron. It could be made available as required by tasks to any of the subordinate units in the Brigade.  It was designed as an amphibious earth mover capable of building ditches and scrapes or breaching obsticals.  The Amphibious capability allowed it to conduct far bank preparation in bridging or amphibious crossings where the egress routes or far bank required development.

The capability included a rocket propelled Earth anchor which could allegedly help in extracting the vehicle from a river where the banks were other wise too steep. I am not clear how effective this capability was, vehicles are rarely shown with it fitted except when swimming.  Earth moving could be done on its own or in conjunction with other dozer equipped vehicles including MBTs, and AVREs which were less effective at digging but quite effective at soil movement.

Study of some Imagery is required in order to understand what the various bits are and how they go together. The images above pretty much cover off that requierment.

The model itself is cast in white Resin and Metal with the body of the platform and the bucket being the resin castings and the tracks, earth anchor, track guards and hydraulics rams being cast in white metal.

On my copy the resin had a few minor defects mostly on the raised detail and minor amounts of flash around a requiring little clean up,  I rebuilt the Smoke Grenade Dischargers from the bits box and filled the rest.  Of the metal components the tracks required little attention whilst the Hydraulic parts and earth anchor had small amounts of soft flash and mold lines that required a bit of attention no major issues, excellent casting throughout.

I think this is one of S&S's best offerings that I have seen, with a high level of detail for a cast wargaming  item.  I added a representation of the hydraulic cabling around the bucket using florists wire, some cable routing on the vehicle using fuse wire and green stuff, some Smoke grenade dischargers from the spares box, a light from the spares box and a rolled cam net in hessian made from green stuff.  I was tempted to drill out the front light units but resisted.   I have left the Earth anchor off as I could find few pictures of it mounted.  All up this is a really good little model. Just got to paint it up now.