Kingsman

I think this would be an RAF car from No2 Company. 11th Hussars were the only Army R-R users in N Africa but had 1924 Pattern cars re-fitted with a locally-built open-topped turret. RAF No1 Company had the R-R Fordson conversions.

Well FFP3 is the highest standard for these things. The standard there was all the scandal about during the pandemic. Next you are talking respirators. While it is difficult to pick out all the various supplier claims and HSE blurb, FFP3 is supposed to filter out 98/99% of respirable harmful particles and aerosols, which would include for example spray painting where the paint has been aerosolised. But no, not toxic vapours as such: toxic atmosphere would usually require SCBA. But they should be suitable for rattle can or airbrush spraying, resin sanding and other things we do which produce airborne particulates. To quote a few pages. FFP3 respirator masks must be made up of a minimum of 4 layers. The outermost layer is made of fluid repellent non-woven fabric. The second is the main filter, generally made of polypropylene microfibres to capture vapours and particles. The third layer is acrylic backing for shape support. The innermost layer is for skin contact moisture absorption. Protection class FFP3 respirator masks offer maximum protection from breathing air pollution including poisonous and deleterious kinds of dust, smoke, and aerosols, oncogenic and radioactive substances or pathogens such as viruses, bacteria and fungal spores, poisonous, oncogenic and radioactive particles. Total leakage (outward) may not exceed 5% and they must filter 99% of all particles measuring up to 0.6 μm. They are often used in the chemistry industry. Recommended applications: textile industry, craft work, iron and steel industry, mining, underground civil engineering, woodworking, welding work, cutting and casting of metals, hospital, laboratory and disease control, pharmaceutical industry, disposal of toxic waste, manufacture of batteries etc. FFP3 respirators can provide protection against solid and liquid aerosols and smoke containing materials such as: Asbestos, calcium carbonate, china clay, cement, cellulose, sulfur, cotton, flour, carbon, ferrous metals, hardwood, silicon, plastic, vegetable oils and mineral oils, copper, aluminum, bacteria, fungi and mycobacterium tuberculosis, chromium, manganese, nickel, platinum, strychnine, metal dust and smoke, viruses and enzymes & mould spores.

The short answer is yes they did. The painting instructions applied to all vehicles, trailers, etc and not just to AFVs. Disruptive painting schemes could not always be readily applied to artillery pieces as per instructions because of their odd shapes, so plain colours are certainly commonplace. For N Africa you have the Tamiya, Dragon and Bronco 25pdrs, Bronco's 17/25pdr, several 6pdrs (but beware those with muzzle brake - too late). The Vulcan 2pdr is OOP but you can still find Sovereign 2000's. Accurate Armour have the 4.5" gun and 5.5" howitzer. They also do a 7.2" and the 3.7" AA. There is the Bronco Bofors 40mm. Resicast did the 6" Howitzer, but that will now be OOP with Resicast closed down. Mirage and S-Model do the 37mm Bofors wz.36 AT. Heller and Blitz do the Hotchkiss 25mm AT. Which means that every British artillery piece for the N African campaign is covered somehow - although some expensively. The 60pdr 5" gun might have been out there until its withdrawal in 1941: Resicast only did the WW1 version of that. Tractors are perhaps more difficult than guns, and appropriate limbers.

In my local Home Bargains today I spotted packs of 16 Honeywell branded UK-made FFP3 disposable face masks for just £1. I bought 2. I'm presuming other branches have them too. Ought to be more than suitable for the things we modellers do.

IMO Tamiya have lost their mojo somewhat in recent times. They are not the leaders they once were. Even in 1/35 their kits are simplified compare to some other brands. Which some of us like. But others don't. And they keep selling some of their Really Old Stuff even when they have later better kits of the same subject. Notwithstanding others' comments about Hobbyboss Shermans, I've just had a look inside their T34/85 kit with interior detail and it's a whole other level compared to Tamiya's offerings. And cheaper. But as scales reduce the finesse of detail inevitably suffers and the parts count decreases. Same in any genre: tanks, cars, planes, ships etc. You see the same with 1/56 wargame models from the likes of Rubicon. Their Shermans have the lights and guards moulded-on solid, but they are intended to be handled. In many cases you could make the same original argument about 1/16 scale, where much more detail arguably could be incorporated in kits than often is.

@AMC1965 I was wrong about the purpose of the little ring bolt at the bottom, It actually anchors a spring to pull the antenna back upright. Seen here on a Mk VI LIght. Some more photos from the MkVI FYI. Here's the signal light in case you fancied a go at that.

Accurate Armour do the wide track in 1/35, and it looks like this. So I think the Pz III/IV track works

Hopefully this one will stay put. I've had a couple of posted images go like that. Contrast suggests the disruptive colour here on this MkIII is black. 22AB are recognised for doing their own thing as a result of misunderstanding an instruction as to which level of commander could authorise scheme changes. The black and white outlined pattern was typical and unique. It is often considered to be brown and could conceivably be unpainted SCC2 or Khaki Green 3. Crusader I and II and some IIIs would have been finished in Khaki Green, later IIIs would have been SCC2. The pattern itself is generally similar to the more common variety, if more accentuated, but with the edging. Dark band along the bottom of the skirts with a central riser up onto the turret. Both sides very much the same. The artwork suggests the turret bands go over the top at the rear and around the front, presumably to meet up in similar fashion on the far side. Which leaves the hull front, rear and engine deck to worry about. Yes the Tamiya 1/48 kit has the same mantlet type as the drawing. I believe that tank could be from one of the County Of London Yeomanries.

Depends on the threat. Sandbags are useless against both shaped charges and kinetic projectiles. A lot of effort for nothing. Concrete will absorb some shaped charge energy and might even prevent penetration if thick enough. It will also take some of the energy out of kinetic projectiles and may also prevent penetration, depending on projectile calibre and engagement range. Track links are fairly hard steel with manganese for strength - often a constituent of armour plate. So you are adding maybe a couple of inches of extra metal. The riveted T62 type seen on the Sherman V above are not so good as they are 2 hollow pressings riveted together rather than a casting. T49s also had thin spots. T54s were best as they were solid. Churchill tracks were better. Rubber links like T41/48/51 are almost useless. The Sherman V tank wears T48s, so it is either remanufactured or is wearing its old set of boots as a new coat. So track links will have effect against kinetic projectiles. Against shaped charges they will absorb some energy but are not stood far enough away from the hull structure to prevent penetration. Links and sandbags add a couple of tons, concrete glacis maybe half a ton. Track links get my vote. Or a cut-up slab of Panther General Patton forbade the use of additional "armour" in 3rd Army as he recognised its futility and the dangerous over-confidence tank crews could feel having fitted it.

I believe you are right. IMO it is a very early MkI that still has the A13-style internal gun mantlet with the angular boxy extension for the BESA MG. In which case it will have the early pattern air cleaners, which you can't really make out. The skirts are, as you say, the later pattern. I imagine it has the early perforated wheels.

Inside The Armour are still going as a publisher and have just started a new range of 3D printed items including some Churchill parts under the "ITA3" banner. Profits to support Ukraine. Their website says this on the subject of the former resin product range: *PLEASE NOTE* we no longer produced any of the sets previously made by Inside the Armour as the resin business closed in 2016. Copyright is still held for these sets but please do not ask us if we have any remaining or intend to reproduce them. Messages regarding this subject will not be answered.

This one? It's a MkIII. The scheme is quite common

It isn't V1 or V2 of Tiger Ausf B (proper name) as it has Zimmerit. Neither of those did as they were mild steel. Bovington has V2 and it has conventional exhausts. But it does have the pre-production turret type: the one we used to call Porsche. He designed it, Krupp built it. Potentially this is a field mod to try to deflect the exhaust downwards, but is a complicated way of doing that. It's seen some use. No stowage, no track covers, missing a rear mudflap, missing an idler tensioning cover and the inertia starter cover. Someone on Missing Lynx might have a better answer. It appears to have S2 painted or chalked on the side. Captured inventory number? Missing lots of bits, engine cover open.

It seems not. But a thought. Could you get away with PzIII/IV 40cm (15.7") tracks if you cut away the angled webs at each end? The guide horns might be wrong, though. Not the commonest thing on the planet, with 1/35 being much better served. WW2 Productions used to do some nice clickable resin ones, but they have folded. However there is a company new to me called Fat Frog Scale Models who do make 1/48 PzIII/IV clickable links. Who knew...... Hobby Easy have them. Don't know if you will find them anywhere else. Their Type 5b track has solid guide horns - although the wrong shape - whereas the others seem to have the hollow type, which would definitely look wrong. https://www.hobbyeasy.com/cgi-bin/i8_user_page.cgi?a=advance_search_result&page_size=10&page_number=1&keyword=TE48&category_code=all

And no, I will not be drilling and fretting out 32 (36?) identical round-cornered rectangular lightening holes in the sprocket and idler rims because you can't damn well see them when fitted! And Inside The Armour got the hole shape wrong anyway: too rounded at the ends.

I've got their Mk III/75 and MkIV in my stash, the latter planned to become an NA75. And I kinda fancy a MkV. Much of those are common to the Mk VII, so lots of interesting info in here. I bought the late-pattern indy link tracks for my MkIV, so I'm hoping they fit better! The MkIII/75 kit comes with the earlier pattern indy link tracks - the only AFV Club Churchill kit which does come with indy links - and in my insane optimism I hope they've included some sprockets which actually fit! I plan not to have the front and rear trackguards on either, so missing sprocket teeth will show in the empty pockets in the tracks. And Churchill (uniquely?) had toothed idlers too. To my eye. AFV Club have the tooth profile wrong. Their teeth almost meet at the rim whereas the real gap was wider and the teeth perhaps slightly slimmer. Inside The Armour did a replacement set but I believe those are OOP. So I might try re-profiling the teeth that will meet the tracks. As for track types, AFV Club offer 2 sets. Essentially, early and late. You can use the early ones on Mks III, IV and V but you need the late ones on Mks VI and VII. You can also use the later ones on Mks III, IV and V.

CSM do seem to be taking on wheeled WW1 AFVs pretty much single-handed with some very interesting choices. There will actually be 3 different Garford-Putilov kits and no less than 18 - yes, you heard me: 18! - after-market-detail-up or alternative parts sets for them. They offer a lot of detail-up sets and alternative parts for some of their kits, which you never see in re-sellers but they are available direct. Long may that continue: there's a lot more still to do. I know they have other things in the pipeline, apparently including the huge Bussing-NAG. I'd like to see an RNAS Seabrook. I keep looking at their Ehrhardt in my LHS but I'm looking for justification to finish one in buntfarbenanstrich multi-colours.

Lots of good Hiillman Tilly information on the Tilly Register site here. http://hillman.tillyregister.com/ The main Tilly Register homepage is here. http://www.tillyregister.com/ You don't mention scale. We have Austins in 1/72, 1/56, 1/48 and 1/35. Airfix did a Standard in 1/72. Accurate Armour do a Standard in 1/48. But they also do a Hillman in 1/35, although it is £62........

The second sentence is the key here. Outside for years. Not just in service for a few weeks or months, maybe a couple of years at most - and apparently without maintenance. Which returns us neatly to the original thrust of this thread. What is appropriate and what is inappropriate. And thus far this thread has done a great deal to discover and reveal excellent information on the nature of armour steel alloys and their oxidation, much of it previously largely unknown or un-appreciated. And to help debunk the idea that everything steel rusts in a heartbeat - because certain artistic modellers have convinced us that this is so Not to mention keeping certain related companies in business and profit - have you seen the price of MiG's U-Rust set? £90-ish........! I had been looking into armour casting hardening for a while and hadn't found some of the things revealed here. The frequent misunderstanding of homegenous vs rolled homegenous has been usefully revealed. The number of arguments I've had, sometimes with people who really should know better, over whether armour castings were made from rolled homogenous armour - which is of course an obvious impossibility............. But that it turn has revealed that early production cast Sherman (and Ram?) hulls were probably not as good as later ones because of initial difficulty in achieving consistent hardening over different thicknesses. All good stuff. Keep it coming.

That decontamination device - and yes it was based on an old water fire extinguisher - was still around in the mid 90s. I certainly remember seeing stillages of them at Marne Barracks, probably in 94. But they were in outside storage so might have been awaiting disposal. My "little tank" didn't have the side or top bins and didn't mount the penthouse, so it sounds like this one isn't for me.

Hmmm. I could be tempted to one of these as I occasionally commanded a Sultan for a while back in the mid-90's. I also balk at the AA one plus a set of other tracks to replace their dreadful resin strips. But I am concerned about the amount of moulded-on detail though, especially as this one has features my ex-RAF Regt one didn't have. Pity he cast a WW2 US-pattern fuel jerrycan on the rear door rack instead of a British post-war plastic water one. Hard to correct.

I know they were initially in short supply, although being part of the Final Specification. You certainly see Mk IVs and VIs without them. I would like to think that by the time of the Mk VII they were adequately available. Comets had them, so did MkVII Churchills. You don't see them on Shermans until 45. 1/48 isn't my scale. Can't think of anyone likely apart from robbing another kit like the Tamiya Crocodile. Gaso.Line would have been my first thought, but he doesn't do one.

Here are a couple of photos of the pivots on a Grant bogie where the tie-downs would attach. One still has a bolt in place. The outer hole is 22mm diameter although it narrows a bit inside. Maybe a 13/16" bolt. My pinkie says the holes are threaded inside.

Mostly yes. Their only purpose was as a shipping tie-down, notably on rail flats. Later a special re-usable clamp bracket was designed for rail use. You do occasionally see them still fitted. The early bogie arm pivots were drilled and tapped for them, later also discontinued. Leaving them attached would affect the operation of the bogie arms as their pivots were effectively tied together. Although I suspect that the bolts would shear or the shackle snap with a few good bumps.

The Armadillo box was a double layer of planking filled with aggregate or pebbles in between. I'm sure I remember reading that the planking was 3" thick and the fill was 6", making a total wall thickness of 12". The Beaverette I and II were also 2" or 3" planking with mild steel plate on the outside.