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Cruising in the Desert - Part II***FINISHED***


PeterB

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And this will probably be my final entry.

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Three versions of the A 15 Cruiser Mk VI Crusader. Quite impressive on paper it was fast but already outdated and the reliability was pretty poor. Still, the Italians were impressed enough to try to copy it.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

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  • PeterB changed the title to Cruising in the Desert - Part II
  • 2 weeks later...

So, I have cut the models off the moulding blocks, tidied them up and degreased them and here they are.

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On the left is a very early Mk I with the original short sand screens or "skirts" on the side, an A13 style central headlight, wheels with a cover plate fitted, and the first and not very effective form of air filter mounted on the rear track guards. It will need the auxilliary mg turret fitting in the recess on the bow glacis plate. The middle one is a Mk II with thicker armour, full length skirts over the dished wheels which do not have the cover fitted, a modified gun mantlet and the later style of filter which was a bit better. It will either need the mg turret fitting or perhaps the blanking plate provided. Both of these tanks carried the 40mm 2pdr main gun. On the right is the final version, the Mk III with thicker armour, no bow turret and a 57mm 6pdr gun which reduced the turret crew to 2 instead of 3.

 

So, here is a little background.

In an earlier build thread I have covered the A13 Mk I and Mk II aka Cruiser Mks III and IV but it was felt that the armour they carried was too light so in 1938 a requirement was issued for a “heavy cruiser” resulting in no less that 4 designs. The LMS built A14 based on the A9 and Nuffield Group built A16 based on the A13 got as far as the pilot model stage but as they showed no significant improvement on existing designs they were cancelled in 1939. LMS were instructed to build a much modified A13 Mk III aka Cruiser Mk V which would become known as the Covenanter whilst Nuffield went on to build a new tank, the A15 Cruiser Mk VI known as the Crusader. It is a long and complicated story so I will be just giving a few basic details based on David Fletcher's Osprey book on the subject.

 

Starting with the Covenanter, the A16 was considered to be too heavy and expensive so the LMS were told to build something lighter and cheaper. To get round the weight problem they decided to use sloping armour as not only did that sometimes cause shells to bounce off but even if they did penetrate, the angle meant that the armour was in effect thicker than if it was vertical – a shell hitting a 3” plate mounted at 45º has to penetrate over 4”for example as it has to traverse the diagonal thickness It was also decided to reduce the height of the hull so the rather tall Liberty V12 engine was replaced by a lower but wider Meadows horizontally opposed flat 12 cylinder one. The turret, also with angled armour was supplied by Nuffield.

 

On paper it looked good and the onset of war meant that it was ordered “off the drawing board” as an emergency programme, without any serious testing taking place. However, the reduction in height coupled with the wider engine caused problems with the cooling system as there just was not enough room inside the hull for the usual fans and coolant radiators, so the latter were mounted outside under armoured covers with no fan assistance, and therein was the design's Achilles Heel. The Covenanter went through 4 Marks and umpteen changes to the cooling system but it was still prone to overheat even in the UK, and tests in the desert confirmed it would be of no use, but in spite of this 1771 were built. A few did see some service as a bridge layer in Burma, but otherwise it was only used for training! AFAIK the one in the Tank Museum is the only one in existence and I seem to recall that it was found buried in the grounds of some country estate where it had perhaps been used to train tank crews.

Cov

Here it is painted in the Museum's take on SCC2 (Standard Camo Colour No 2) which as you can see was a brown, though possibly it should be a little darker. This was introduced in 1941 to replace the previous "Khaki Green G3" that had been used as a base, due to a shortage of Chromium Oxide pigment used to make green paints! Green did not make a comeback until Italy in the form of SCC7, and then as the slightly browner SCC15 Olive Drab (greener than the US version). You can see the prominent armoured louvres covering the radiators on the front right of the pic.

 

I will describe the development of the  A15 Cruiser Mk VI Crusader next time.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Here are my Milicast Covenanter and Crusader I models. They are about the same size but the Covenanter is a bit lower in profile. The colours are a bit out under artificial light as usual!

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I have painted the A13 Cruiser Mk V in the old White Ensign Colourcoats version of SCC2 base with a SCC1A Very Dark Brown disruptive pattern, whilst the A15 Cruiser Mk VI Crusader is currently in an all over scheme of Light Stone, though that will change.

 

So to continue the development story - 

Moving on to the Crusader, this too had its problems but at least it did see a lot of service. Once the LMS proposal for the Covenanter was approved, Nuffield Group were asked to join in the manufacture but Lord Nuffield refused and said that they would build a tank of their own design – apparently that was typical of the man who always insisted on having his own way, and such was his power and influence that he was allowed to get away with it (in Russia he would probably have been shot or at least sent to Siberia). In this instance it was probably for the best given what happened with the Covenanter! He also insisted in using an uprated version of the Liberty engine which his company were manufacturing under licence but still managed to keep the height down to only an inch or two greater than the LMS tank which was built in parallel. The turret with a crew of 3 and a 2pdr main armament and a coaxial Besa was very similar to that Nuffield built for the Covenanter but the hull was somewhat different having an extra main wheel on both sides, and the radiators were inside the hull, drawing air through filters mounted on the rear track guards. The armour on the first Mk I version was similar to the Covenanter though it was added to on each of the following models, dimensions were about the same but it was a bit heavier. However the engine was also more powerful so performance did not suffer much, the max road speed being 27mph.The most noticeable difference was that an auxiliary turret was mounted on the left of the nose with another Besa, though it proved cramped and hot in the desert and was sometimes removed. The Mk II had thicker armour and the mg turret was often removed, and it was dispensed with completely on the MkIII with even thicker armour and a modified 2 man turret mounting a 6pdr gun. A CS version with a 3” Howitzer was also available.

 

Next time I will cover the Crusader in action, but one interesting point about the turrets of both tanks, which were made by Nuffield and essentially identical, at least initially. Usually British tanks had either one or two small hatches on top of the turret but this one had a complete section of the roof that opened on spring loaded struts - you can just about make it out on the Crusader above. It was so hinged that the hatch cover stayed horizontal as it swung both up and back so it ended up looking rather like the rear wing on an F1 racing car. It could be locked in a part or fully open position, but apparently it was not unknown for the locks to fail causing it to drop on the heads of the unspecting crew - hardly ideal and it was replaced by a more conventional design in the Mk III.

 

In my intro to my builds in this GB in the Cruising in the Desert – Part I, I said that I had found Milicast kits to be fairly accurate with one possible exception, and that is the length of their Crusaders, and I suspect Covenanters too. It is easy enough to measure them but the problem is knowing what the various published dimensions actually refer to – and even then I have seen lengths of anywhere from 19' 6” to 20' 8” quoted. In terms of width you have to make allowance for any side skirts and/or dust/sand shields that may or may not have been fitted, and in terms of length, in some cases the gun overhangs the front hull, sometimes by quite a lot. Add in the fact that the Crusader and Covenanter often carried an external fuel tank at the back and the situation becomes less than clear as few if any sources I have seen define just what exactly they are including in their measurements – it is like the Avro Lincoln I built last year – it matched the plans perfectly and the wingspan was within a couple of mil of the published one, but the fuselage seemed to be a scale 4' short, unless the published figures included the barrels of the front and rear turret guns at which point it matched.

 

In this case I suspect that the Milicast model is around 5mm short and when I mentioned it to Tom Welsh who ran the company he said I was probably correct. Having said that the supposed 1/76 Airfix Crusader is a mil or two long even for 1/72  (I seem to remember somebody told me that they made the wheel spacing too large), and the Hasegawa 1/72 kit is also said to be even longer! I can only assume the person who made the master for the moulds was either working from incorrect info or got his sums/measurements wrong. I will have to live with it I suppose, but it is a pity. Anyway, as you can see I have done the basic painting and if I was being lazy I could leave it at that as some were in overall Light Stone up to late 1942 when Desert Pink was introduced as on my Mk III, but most had a single disruptive colour added as camo so I will be doing that.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

 

Edited by PeterB
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Bit of a panic - I discovered that the tin of old White Ensign Colourcoats BS61 Light Stone paint I have been using is about to run out, Sovereign don't list it in their Coloucoats range and Jamie tells me that White Ensign dropped it as they were also producing BS361 Light Stone as used in the Gulf War and that as far as he is concerned they are both the same colour and just the BS number has been updated. Mike Starmer, who usually knows a thing or two about British Military paint has said that the colours were not the same but given how much research Jamie does for his paints I am inclined to think Mike may have been fooled by the number change. Whatever, I decided to get out all the tanks I am part way through painting in the BS61 and finish them before the paint runs out, to avoid the risk of having to touch up with a new tin that may not be a perfect match. Here is the result!

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Ok, 3 of them are in the later Desert Pink paint which I have plenty of, and the Milicraft Grants and Sherman are not part of this GB but the disruptive colours are the same so as I had the tins out they got painted as well - actually one of the Grants is painted as if the Brits had used the US OD paint it was delivered in as the disruptive to save them doing a complete repaint - that happened quite a bit I believe. That means there are 4 disruptive paints in use - SCC1A Very Dark Brown, SCC7 Dark Green, SCC14 Blue Black, and the US OD. More on the individual tanks later once I get the decs on.

 

Back to the Crusader,

Unlike the Covenanter, the Crusader showed no obvious problems during testing and a first batch was shipped out to the desert in May 1941 just in time for Operation Battleaxe - they soon proved to have major reliability problems! There are various theories on what went wrong but I will list a few. Firstly, before shipping the coolant system was emptied, so tanks were driven around the docks with no water and although they did not travel far they overheated putting stress on the components, Added to this they were not very well covered up so during the voyage they suffered from salty sea air and even water getting into the works, so many had to be given a full workshop overhaul when they arrived, and spares were initially short in supply. Then we come to the cooling system. Air was drawn in through filters as mentioned earlier and they were positioned where they would be in the middle of a cloud of fine sand when the tank was moving. Various types of filter were tried but they soon clogged up, and whatever sand they did not catch got into the engine compartment where it turned lubricating oil and grease into a sticky and abrasive mess. Cooling pumps and the chain drive for the cooling fans failed frequently, and then there was the engine itself. The Liberty was an aero engine and as such the cylinders were not machined into the usual solid metal block but were fitted on individually, presumably to save weight. Charging about in the desert sometimes shook them loose and let the oil leak out! All of these problems were eventually overcome to a large extent, but by then the Crusader had gained a reputation for being unreliable, and in any case the armour and gun were fast becoming outdated. As a gun tank the Crusader was retired after the end of the war in the desert, but many continued to serve as SP AA gun mounts, bulldozers and artillery tractors until the end of the war. Around 5300 were built.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

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Thanks Mj,

 

I will admit to being somewhat lazy as I have used the "semi official" camo patterns on all Grants, Valentines and Crusaders although inevitably there were a lot of local variations. I have perhaps compensated for that to some extent by working the changes with the disruptive colours - the only "official "one I did not use so far is BS 64 Slate, but I have used that already in my Caunter scheme on the early A13 and will be using it quite a lot on the tanks I am building in the background that are not eligible for this GB. Of course I have also used the two base colours from 1941 to 1943.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

 

 

 

 

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  • PeterB changed the title to Cruising in the Desert - Part II***FINISHED***

You flatter me - I always look at other modellers work and think how much better their painting is - particularly if they take the time and trouble to use their airbrush - I can't usually be bothered with all the masking and just grab a hairy stick!

 

Pete

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