Kingsman

And that's just 1!! Imagine a whole Squadron or even a whole Regiment thundering down the road towards you. At Villers-Bocage Herr Wittman had 3 Regiments of Cromwells heading up the road towards him. Cromwells sounded pretty much the same. And I was surprised at Tankfest this year to hear that the Liberty engine in the newly-restored Centaur also sounded much the same. Another V12 petrol of about the same cc. I was at the Museum one day when this Comet was being test-run over at the workshops and you could clearly hear it even at idle from the main Museum 400m or more away.

That exact photo is currently for sale on eBay titled as Italian Army Bofors guns in Spain in 1936. Although 1937 is pencilled on the back of the photo. The seller seems to be a seller of primarily Italian military photos. https://www.ebay.it/itm/256281739509?mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=724-53478-19255-0&campid=5338722076&customid=&toolid=10050 Here it is to aid the discussion. It certainly looks like a photo of that era. The white section is not explained. It sure looks like a cut-out section from the front because of the shadow at the top but does not appear in the image of the back of the photo. But the bottom edge profiles of the 2 images do match up so they are the same picture. So is it a piece stuck on, and if so what is it covering - and why? The Italians had a considerable - if often ineffective - presence in the Nationalist forces. About 45,000 regular Italian soldiers and 30,000 Blackshirt militia volunteers would serve in Spain. Italy would supply Spain with about 1,800 artillery pieces in addition to those they fielded themselves. It seems that Italian ground forces did not deploy to mainland Spain until January 1937 and that their involvement in 1936 might have been limited to the Balearic Islands. The photo is clearly a coastal location and it appears that live fire against an airborne target is going on. The uniforms could be Italian artillery or Nationalist: units of both wore jodhpurs with puttees or long socks and sidecaps. But they could be several other nations too. Greece did not get any of the Bofors they ordered. They could be Poles, Dutch, Romanians or even Finns. The uniform detail is not clear enough. But Italy's medium-calibre AA gun of the period was the 37mm Breda 37/54. And the only identified Italian use of the Bofors gun was the US-made M1 version supplied to Italian Co-Belligerent forces working alongside Allied forces after Italy's surrender. One Co-Belligerent AA unit was equipped with British-made Bofors but 5 Aviation Groups (51st - 55th) supported the USAAF with ground defence and AAA. The Bofors in the picture are not US-made as they have the predictor sights. The very earliest British guns did still have the predictor sights but it is unlikely that any of these would still have been around in 1944. The US NavWeaps site claims that Poland supplied 24 guns and 50,000 rds of ammunition to the Republicans in 1938 which were "eventually" captured by the Nationalists and ended up as coastal defence guns. Which sounds very much like the Vickers guns mentioned in my earlier post. But if true that is the wrong side and wrong date for the Italian photo. I'm not sure that I can see Poland supporting the Republicans anyway. Pre-war Poland was no friend of Communist causes. And Poland was busily re-equipping its own armed forces, although they apparently actually exported 168 guns to the United Kingdom, France, Romania and The Netherlands. None of which seem likely to have ended up in Spain or Italy. And the early Polish built Wz36 guns had wheels with fewer larger holes, although the type shown here was used later on the Wz38 - potentially too late for the picture date. A Russian-hosted site on Polish AA weapons doesn't mention Spanish exports of the Bofors. So I don't think we're much further forward despite what the photo says. Supply of Bofors to Spain remains unclear and use by Italy in the timeframe as the photo claims seems to be a definite no. And if Italy was supplying the Nationalists with artillery why would Italian forces be using Nationalist weapons supplied by others?

At least you got a later moulding with the right number of bolts on the wheels!

I think too much reliance is placed on the idea of LRDG doing their own thing with colours. Rogues and all that, stealing RAF paints and so on. All of their vehicles would have been supplied in Light Stone, either factory finish or depot repaint. I believe the Chevy 1533s (the Tamiya kit) were factory-finished in Light Stone in Canada specifically for the Middle East. The CMPs they used before that probably were too. Not sure about the earlier Chevy WBs and Ford 01s: probably depot repaints from Khaki Green. You see all sorts modelled including pink and blue, the latter presumably a hang-over from the days when people thought that the Caunter scheme used a blue. There is even a preserved one in sand and blue, although in some images it looks more grey. Chevrolet WBs seem to have been mostly disruptively painted in broad bands, and I would bet they were the local theatre brown paint over Light Stone. The relatively low contrast in images suggests this. Disruptive painting on CMPs and Chevy 1533s is seemingly less common but looks to be very similar contrast. So I would say that brown was probably used on these too. Slate BS34 is a possibility: it was used on some AFVs. But the contrast doesn't look high enough to me for this: it appeared as a dark green. Silver Grey BS28, the colour so often substituted for a blue? This appeared as a pale green and the contrast is about right, so could be. The same can be said for Desert Pink, which would also show relatively low contrast with Light Stone. I'm not convinced about the idea of LRDG vehicles in overall Desert Pink as they mostly look too pale in images, especially the Chevy 1533s. It is the CMPs you generally see modelled or drawn/painted in this colour, and they were too early for the Oct '42 instruction to use it. Disruptive painting in the desert is less useful than you might think. Moving vehicles will throw up dust, rendering it useless. Shadow and tyre tracks are a much greater give-away than colour for static vehicles - assuming they're not in a stand-out colour. So, what seems plausible from the contrast in black and white imagery? IMO, these: Theatre brown over Light Stone (maybe the brown was the old Dark Sand?). This is a racing certainty. Silver Grey over Light Stone Desert Pink over Light Stone Plain Light Stone. Also a racing certainty.

You do see the Airfix ex-JB kits 2nd hand from time to time. There was a Stalwart from a brand I can't remember but Ace do one too, along with Saracen, Saladin and Salamander. Have you thought about Oxford Diecast? They look as if they could be detailed up. They do Bedford RLs, but strangely not MKs. There is a TK with a genset body and various CA minibuses. Also Sherpa van/bus, many Land Rovers, Minis, Morris J2,

See also the thread in the WW2 discussion area about tow cables. I've just posted a piece in there about why rusty tow cables on models are wrong.

I presume you mean the antenna on the MkI and early MkII for the No11 Wireless? The one mounted on the fold-back bracket on the rear face of the turret? The antennas for the far more common No19 set installation were both on the turret roof with no visible cabling. Presuming that is what you mean, I would hazard a guess that it went through the same hole later used for the No19 A set's No8 antenna base at the right rear of the turret. That would put it pretty much above the radio. There would have been a bolted cover over the hole. The No19 B set antenna re-used the mounting hole for the signal lamp also seen in this photo. This image seems to confirm that. I believe the cable entry cover was a standard part that looked like this. The fold-back antenna base had a thin wire cable from the back edge going into the lower rear of the turret so that the crew could pull the antenna down. I believe this shows where the cable entered the turret. The square plate is the old antenna base. The cable ran down into the round device through then slot. There is a small pulley wheel inside. The small eye is, IIRC, for hooking back the antenna base once pulled down. This is the antenna bracket itself, here on an A10. The pull-down wire attaches to the rear arm.

Also, don't overlook bicycle cables. Especially the thinner gear change type rather than the heavier brake type. Although the thinnest I've seen is 1mm, which is fine for some of the heavier tow cables in 1/35. Bike cables can work well in larger scales like 1/16 as they can be as large as 2mm. A problem with some picture hanging wire is that it is not always wound tightly enough to represent steel wire rope (SWR) in scale, which has a very tight spiral and is usually wound around a central core, often of hemp rope. You can sometimes tighten this up a little using a vice and a pin vice without the need for winding pliers. Something else to bring up, crossing over with the rust topic currently running on this forum, is rust. Or more precisely the lack of it on SWR cables. It's something else that some people like to slather rust all over on models, which is wrong. A rusty cable will not work properly and would in peacetime conditions be condemned. Everyone's SWR cables and cable fittings like thimbles (eyes) and crimp ferrules were galvanised in WW2 to prevent corrosion. They were also required to be kept clean and lubricated. Old Man Shitancrap is the sworn enemy of keeping SWR in good order. Lubrication is necessary to allow the individual strands to move against each other as the cable flexes. Without it, and if covered in grit, mud, etc, the cable will become stiff and rigid and will not flex properly. Ideally cable will be kept off the ground except on firm hard solid surfaces. Not so easy recovering a bogged-in tank in a muddy morass in the rain in the dark........ At some point cables used thus should be laid out in the dry, well brushed off and re-lubricated with grease or oil. If this isn't done then grit and dust can work its way right inside the cable and begin to abrade the hemp core, as well as being impossible to remove and making the cable stiff. There are 2 types of ends for tow cables, and they behave differently. One way, perhaps more traditional, is to form a loop in the cable around a pre-formed pressed metal thimble to make an eye. The running (loose) end is then secured to the cable using a crimp ferrule or sometimes U bolt clamps on improvised or repaired cables. German tow cables were mostly made this way. The other way is to use a cast end piece which is both eye and ferrule. This is heated before the cable is inserted and as it cools it shrinks to grip the cable. Russian and US tow cables were usually made this way. The UK used both methods. The wearing surfaces of the thimbles/eyes would rapidly lose their galvanising from friction with shackles etc and would rust, likely to be worn off the next time used. These areas would also be lightly lubricated to retard corrosion. The chunky solid cast eyes would be a hardened high-quality steel alloy which would oxidise and corrode only very slowly.

Note to self. Private equity companies are only interested in milking profit. As apparently was senor Vallejo, who seemingly pocketed a tidy bob or two. IMO it would be better for control of such companies - or indeed any company - to remain with people invested in the subject - not just invested. Hobby horse stabled.........

Vehicles recovered from lakes and especially bogs in Eastern Europe are often in comparatively good condition compared to those of similar vintage above ground on ranges because of reduced oxygen content. Peaty bogs can be almost completely anaerobic.

Yes crumpled track cover centre sections could indeed obstruct the turret and were often removed. But the whole length was often removed as the clearance over the tracks was limited and they could easily acculmulate mud and debris. There was a scraper at the lower rear for the inside face and the reinforcing bar across the bottom of the rear overhangs acted as an outer face scraper. The front and rear overhangs were also easily damaged or pulled off in close terrain and could get in the way of obstacle climbing - bocage hedges for example - and so were often removed. In which case the rear scraper bar was lost, compounding the accumulation of mud and debris under the covers. The front and rear ends of the covers, where the flat dimpled/riveted plates are, were thicker applique reinforcing plates to protect the covers from being stoved-in by gun muzzle blast.

Annoyingly, images of it in use are usually obstructed by the breech. In this view it seems that the bar across the trail legs hinges on the left (as seen here). In the previous view there doesn't seen to be an operating catch of any sort on the bar, and the tab on the cradle is just a simple T piece. So I would take a swag that the bar hinged forward, the cradle was elevated to the correct angle and the bar swung back into place to retain the cradle tab.

Very nice.

Very nice indeed.

These are only phone photos too, so they may not be any better than those you have. I couldn't get any of the interior as I just got flash glare from the perspex and the mesh obstructing the view. Obviously the mesh-covered openings and steps are just for instructional purposes. The base is actually a slice of Centaur hull, logically. And it is a MkI turret, also logical as those were the only ones built. So the back end of a MkII will be different, but there was only 1 of those. Apologies for the pesky lights in some pictures.

@badger Do you have photos of the Centaur AA MkII turret at Bovington? I have some if you need.

Yes I've seen those and concluded the same assumption basis. 1 and 2 RHA were part of 22 Armd Bde at some time during its independent period pre-Alamein when Priests would just have been arriving in theatre, but I don't think they had Priests. 11 RHA seems to be the unit that comes up as the early Priest adopter. I'm still leaning towards the upper colour being the Slate we know for certain was used in that position on Grants and Stuarts. This colourised and therefore not entirely trustrworthy image of an 11 RHA M7 shows a 4-colour scheme!! Which I'm not sure I see in the originals.

The Accurate Armour product will be their usual strips of pre-formed resin links that must be heat-bent to shape. Not recommended. I thought that Masterclub did a set but their website seems to be unavailable (and they are Russian). There is a Masterclub UK shop on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/572105619930063/ For the £30-ish price of the after-market tracks you might consider buying one of the Border Models kits, which come with nice indy link tracks and metal gun barrels and are far superior to the decades-old Italeri kit. Although they are still about £50.

Just to confuse the issue some late Type D hull Centaurs did have the ratchet adjuster. But the only one of those you might see anywhere or want to model as a gun tank is the RMASG Centaur IV CS. Both of the preserved Centaur III Dozers - one recently rebuilt as a gun tank - have the hockey stick adjusters on Type D hulls. For anyone considering a Centaur AA, those had type C hulls with worm type idler adjusters. The incompatibility is having the worm tensioner cover bosses next to the headlights while having the egg-shaped idler adjuster piece on the idler axle and/or the hockey stick alongside the engine deck.

Looking at the sprue and CAD pictures of the M3A3 it does have the diesel hull. The box art is just badly drawn at the rear - and by showing it as an operational US gun tank, which we know they were not. That kit has very limited use: US or UK training or Brazilian. ILK are intending to do an M3A5, with the same limitations: US training or Brazilian. Or one of the handful of M3A5s used at Makin Island, their only US operational use. Minart already do the M3A5, which doesn't sell as it has little use, but they don't do an M3A3. Now, if ILK were to combine M3A3 parts with Grant parts to produce a welded Grant II that would be a unique kit. 83 Grant IIs had welded hulls. Personally I'm still going to sand off the rivets on a Miniart Grant II as it is a much better kit. The sprue and CAD pictures of the "M3A4" on ILK's website show it to be just a late-production M3 as noted above. An M3A4, while interesting and Completing The Set of M3s, is another M3 with little purpose as none of the 109 built ever left the USA. And it would need completely different upper and lower hulls and bogies from anything they've done so far. Whereas their M3 kits to date leverage a lot of common parts.

Yes this model had one as it had the ratchet-type idler adjustment. Centaur-Cromwells were a mixed bunch in this respect. The Final Specification for operationally deployable Cromwells called for the ratchet adjuster, so that should be the case for any Cromwell in Europe post D-Day. I don't recall whether the Tamiya Cromwell kit gives you both idler adjuster options as parts but I believe the instructions only cover the ratchet type. Airfix only include the ratchet type.

@Circloy thank you for the intervention. Much appreciated. Most of what I've said on tnis subject has been observational from 30-odd years in Defence, 8 years as an army reservist and now 7 years working with preserved vehicles. I'm no engineer, chemist or metallurgist. I did work on armoured and protected vehicle projects. Finding cogent understandable explanations is not always easy. Or we'd all be doing it!

Yes, fire will cause oxidation. Burned-out AFVs will be rusty as the photos show. So will Salt water immersion: vehicles salvaged from the sea bed. Buried vehicles recovered in Eastern Europe often show little or no corrosion as the peaty soils are essentially anaerobic. IIRC near-freezing water also slows corrosion.

Have a look at 3D Gizmo here. https://www.3d-gizmo.co.uk/

To have a proper understanding of the original subject, rust, it is necessary to explore some of the chemistry and metallurgy involved. So many people seem to believe that anything metal rusts to orangey shades in no time at all. And in the context of AFVs it is important to understand what does and doesn't corrode and oxidise and how that progresses over time. I've even seem rusted models of aluminium vehicles like M113s. And then there are the many models of vehicles only in service for a short time looking like 20 year range wrecks. Unfortunately I have to lay a lot of the blame for that on The Spanish School of artistry in modelling. Artistry over realism.