1/35 zvezda British 6 pounder anti tank gun

[Migfan]

Hi all

 

Not sure what forum this should go in.  But I was wanting to know  if the 1/35 zvezda 6 pounder gun comes with any shells or ammo boxes in the kit?  If anyone knows, can you tell me?

 

cheers

[bootneck]

 

Hello Migfan.

 

The Zvezda kit doesn't appear to have anything other than the gun itself, according to this parts breakdown.

 

The version by Riiche #RV35042 comes with rounds, ammo boxes and crew.

 

cheers,

Mike

 

[Migfan]

Thanks for that.  I see also the AFV 6 pounder also comes with a couple brass cases and an ammo box.  I think the Riche kit might be ok.  I’m doing a diorama set after the battle of Gazala depicted a german armour unit.  I wanted to incorporate a commonwealth defence trench in it with a 6 pounder.  Obviously I will need a few spent cases and at least an ammo box next to the gun showing it’s just been in use and been abandoned.

 

otherwise does anyone make 1/35 6 pounder rounds and ammo boxes separately?

[Kingsman]

AFV Club have brass 6pdr rounds.  Panzer Art have ammo boxes suitable for 6pdr rounds. 

 

The Zvezda kit is ancient and the more recent kits mentioned are much better.  That kit has previously been boxed by Italeri, Airfix, Peerless and Max and dates back to the 1970's.

[Richard S]

Check your references, I think at the time of Gazala all 6 pdrs in theatre were early models as depicted by Zvezda. Riich, AFV Club and Bronco all depict later and / or airborne models. Riich however also make the US M1 57mm version of the British 6 pdr which was supplied lend lease but is also suitable to depict an original British gun.

If you can get hold of the Italeri version of the zvezda ( and Max and Airfix ) gun it comes with a small diorama base and accessories including ammo box and ammunition.

Hope this helps

Richard

[Kingsman]

The US 57mm M1 is NOT suitable to represent a 6pdr.  The visible differences in that scale are the size and style of wheels and the barrel, possibly the auxiliary shield.  All M1s had the L/50 barrel as the US had enough barrel lathe capacity to make them, although the tube was much thicker.  While the low-production initial Mk I had an L/50 barrel the Mks II and III had to adopt an L/43 barrel as there was not enough lathe capacity to make the L/50 and other weapons had greater priority for the capacity available.  The Mks IV and V did finally have the L/50 barrel, but with a muzzle brake and a slimmer barrel than the M1.  Mks III and V were tank guns.

 

But the good news is that over 4,000 M1s were used by Commonwealth forces and are frequently mis-identified as 6pdrs in images, so an M1 kit is suitable for British desert use.  Here is one, an M1A1 or A2.

[Migfan]

Thanks for all the info.  One last question if someone can answer it.  In the Riich 6 pounder kit, exactly how many rounds does it contain?  Exactly how many used shell cases does it contain?  Exactly how many ammo boxes does it contain?

Many thanks

[Migfan]

I do have one more question.  Did the Mk 1 version see active service?  Also would I be right in saying that early Mk 2 versions had no muzzle breaks?  The muzzle breaks I believe were only attached to later Mk 2 versions and on all the subsequent versions?  Is this correct?

[Kingsman]

The very early MkIs had the long L/50 barrel with no muzzle brake, but there were very few of these made as we could not dedicate sufficient barrel production capacity at that length at that time.  So service towed Mk II and tank Mk III had the shorter L/43 barrel with no muzzle brake.  When we were able to begin making L/50 barrels the muzzle brake was introduced on the towed Mk IV but not on the tank MkV.  The confusion comes from all M1 guns having the longer barrel with no muzzle brake.  British-made L/43 barrels were also considerably thicker than US-made L/50 ones.

 

Summary.

Mk I - too rare, forget it (but long barrel with no brake)

Mk II - short barrel, no muzzle brake

Mk III - short barrel tank gun, muzzle counterweight, no muzzle brake

Mk IV - long barrel with muzzle brake

Mk V - long barrel tank gun, muzzle counterweight, no muzzle brake.

M1 - long barrel, no muzzle brake. 

 

For ammunition, only the Mks IV and V could fire the later APDS rounds.  These were not available in the N African, Sicilian and the majority of the Italian campaigns.

Edited September 5 by Kingsman
correction

[Migfan]

Thanks for that info.   So I need a Mk II with no muzzle break for my diorama depicting the battle of Gazala.  That correct?

 

many thanks again

[Kingsman]

Yes. Or a 57mm M1.

[Migfan]

Ah so a US 57mm M1 is the same size barrel and same specs as the 6 pounder Mk II?  Are the wheels the same? Are the front plates the same as well on the US 57mm M1?

[Kingsman]

NO.  Please read the words.  I have explained.  The M1 was a US-built clone of the 6 pdr.  It had different wheels and a different barrel and a slightly different shield to clear the larger wheels.  The photo I posted above is an M1.  But it was just as widely used in N Africa by Commonwealth forces as the "real" 6pdr was.  So it is an alternative.  They are frequently mis-identified in photos.

 

The Zvezda/Italeri/Airfix/Peerless/Max 6pdr is the right type of 6pdr for N Africa but the tooling is about 50 years old now.  If you want a better kit then the Riich M1 kit (below) is equally appropriate for Commonwealth forces in N Africa and is a much nicer kit.  You also get US and British ammo boxes plus ammunition and packing tubes with decals.  The US crew will be no use to you.

 

[MarcoVanBasten]

I could be wrong, but the barrel in the photo seems very similar to this one.
The only immediately visible differences are the wheels and the shield.
In all the M1s, with the L/50 barrel it seems to me that it is much slimmer and usually ends with a tulip muzzle, while the one in the photos is straight.

 

[Kingsman]

You are correct that the US made L/50 barrel is slimmer than the UK made L/43 as well as being longer and with a slight flare at the muzzle.  Wheels and barrels are the key identifiers between M1s and 6pdrs.  The picture above being unloaded from a portee truck is definitely a 6pdr Mk II.

 

But the gun in the photo I posted earlier in this thread is actually an oddity.  It clearly has the thicker shorter L/43 barrel, so the ordnance is definitely a 6pdr.  But the wheels are definitely US-pattern.  Parts were not interchangeable between M1 and 6pdr because of manufacture tolerance differences.  The UK barrel could not be fitted to the US recoil system as I understand it  The US wheels would definitely not fit the UK hubs: apart from anything else, UK hubs were 6 stud and US ones were 5 stud.  The US axles were also longer because of the different wheel disc offset.  So what is it?  Short answer: don't know.  If I had to hazard a guess I would suggest that it is the upper carriage of a 6pdr mounted on the lower carriage of an M1A1.  Potentially an ordnance workshop repair using 2 damaged guns.  I can't think of any other reasonable explanation.

 

These are true M1 guns in Commonwealth service in N Africa.

 

Dcent comparative photos of 6pdrs are surprisingly hard to find.  This is a 6pdr.  But in this case has the muzzle counterweight usually seen on the MkIII tank version of the gun.

 

Here is another with the standard L/43 barrel.

 

Now if you want more confusion, look at this one.  Canadian troops in Holland with a 57mm M1A2 gun but fitted with a bolt-on "muzzle brake" so that it looks like a 6pdr Mk IV.  Presumably to permit the use of UK APDS ammunition, which needed the long barrel and a muzzle brake.  It has been wrongly fitted as the bolt should be at the top so that the slots face either side.  Here they face up and down and will kick up a lot of dust.

Edited September 5 by Kingsman
correction

[MarcoVanBasten]

Maybe I could venture a hypothesis, as strange as it may be, but it could explain some oddities.
I repeat it is only my hypothesis, I will try to explain it and then I will leave it to you to evaluate, if this can make sense.
After the production of the 6 pdr had begun in Great Britain, with the L/43 barrel, the United States also began to produce this gun, which for them became the M1.
It could be, I repeat it could be, that before moving to a longer barrel, from L/43 to L/50, to make the most of the types of projectiles and charges already adopted and in production, studied for the shorter L/43 barrel, the United States also initially produced their version of the 6 pdr with a short L/43 barrel.
During this initial phase they could have introduced some of their characteristic modifications, to the carriage, wheels and shields, and then finished the development, with a longer barrel, for what became the definitive M1 gun.
It would seem a plausible sequence to me, but I repeat, it remains only a hypothesis, because I do not know the certain data of the production of 6 pdr/M1 in the United States.
It could be a stretch, but this would explain many of the photos in the North African desert, where guns with the characteristics of the 6 pdr L/43 are evident, but with some of the typical modifications of the later M1s.
This initial production would have been used operationally, before being flanked and then replaced by the first definitive versions of the M1 gun.

[Kingsman]

I like your thinking.  But there are 2 flaws.  Firstly, the L/50 barrel was the original design.  The L/43 was a downgrade because of production difficulties rather than the L/50 being an upgrade..  The US was always able to make the longer barrel.  I have found nothing anywhere to indicate that the US ever produced the shorter barrel.  Perhaps that photo is that evidence.  But it is so far the only identifiable "M1" with the shorter barrel.  I have not yet found another photo of the same configuration in Commonwealth or US service.  Which is why I believe it is possibly a repair hybrid.  I suppose it might not be impossible to simply fit a replacement UK barrel to a US breech and recoil mechanism if the threads mated.  Workshops were inventive.  Don't forget that we even discovered that the bettter German 75mm projectiles from the short 7.5cm KwK could be mated to US cartridge cases and fired from Grants and Shermans.  Ways were found to do things not thought possible.

 

The ammunition did not change in order to keep it interchangeable between the L/43 and L/50, knowing that the 2 types would serve alongside each other and anticipating a return to UK L/50 production.  Two types of ammunition would have complicated production and supply, and was not actually necessary.  But as a result the recoil was greater with the shorter barrel and the carriage jumped into the air.  In the photo below of Australians with a short-barrel 6pdr the barrel is at full recoil and the carriage wheels are off the ground.  As the muzzle blast has dissipated I imagine the gun has begun to return to battery and the carrige begun to fall back down.  In film they can be seen to jump higher.

 

The only ammunition changes were the later US APCR and UK APDS.  Both could only be fired from the longer barrel and APDS could only be fired from the UK Mk IV gun with a muzzle brake.  I don't know if APCR was supplied to the UK.

 

[MarcoVanBasten]

 

ecc

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205623975

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205623976

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205623977

[MarcoVanBasten]

3 minutes ago, MarcoVanBasten said:

Sorry, I sent by mistake.
I was looking through some of the IWM photo collections and I found three photos of what I think could be another of these "monsters", half 6 pdr and half M1.
The problem is that I can't upload the images, I assume it's a licensing issue.
These are the links:

 

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205623975

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205623976

https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205623977

 

[Migfan]

I don’t think I would kick off such a huge discussion. Nice to see a few photos of the Australian 9th division in the slouch hats with their 6 pounders!!!  Thanks for the info.  Rommel was asked if he had to take hell, what soldiers would use.  His reply was

 

 I would use the Australians to take it and the New Zealanders to hold it.

 

He also said give me a battalion of Australians and I would win this campaign in North Africa.  That comes from general Westphal who was Rommels operations officer.

[Migfan]

The commander of the Australian 9th division, general Morsehead (nicknamed Ming the merciful) Bernard Montgomery said was his best general along with the New Zealander commander, general Bernard Fryberg VC.  The Australian 9th division was to hold Tobruk for 8 weeks and ended up holding it for 6 months with some British troops, British artillery, Indian troops and parts of the Australian 7th division.  The Royal Navy did a great job in resupplying them I might add and the RN does not get enough praise for this.

 

Morsehead did not want the Australians to get a siege mentality so he sent patrols out every night to the German lines and told them to cut their throats.  The Australians tied white rags around the wire so the next morning the Germans would see they had been there and this put fear into them.  They wore socks over their boots so as not to make noise and they also killed and captured quite a few Germans doing this.  The 9th division got the name the rats of Tobruk from the german propaganda radio of Lord Haw Haw calling them that.  They then held the name with pride.

 

The 9th Australian division also fought at Al Alemein with distinction.  The only unit to take their objectives on the first day and then when told to cut the coastal road, Rommel put in all his armour units into fighting them.  This allowed Montgomery to then change his plan and put in the main attack in the south.  The rest is history.

 

The last surviving member of the Australian 9th division died in August,  2024, aged 104. RIP

 

So just for everyone’s info.  I used to take tour groups through the western desert of Egypt and I always stopped at Al Alemein.  The commonwealth cemeteries and the museum there is very interesting to visit.  There are lots of relics and tanks ect. from the battle.

Edited September 5 by Migfan

[Kingsman]

Those 3 pictures and the one I posted are the same gun and the same gun crew.  Looking at them and the caption on the back of one of the photos these are PR photos.

 

[MarcoVanBasten]

I understand what you mean.
To be honest, the gun doesn't look the same to me.
The darkest part, near the muzzle, is missing in the 3 new photos.
I don't even see the writing on the shield at the bottom under the barrel, but it could be covered by the tools and the shovels.
The dates are different, these 3 are from about ten days earlier and the author of the photos is also different, compared to the first one of Sgt. Flack, I think.
It also leaves me perplexed, but there could be a bureaucratic explanation, the number assigned to the photos, the last 3 are consecutive E 18390/E 18392, while the other is E 18895.

[Modelholic]

In the pic of the Canadians in Holland.

The gun barrel doesn't seem to be 90degs to the shield.

Could they be in the process of fitting or removing the gun from the carriage which could explain the muzzle break rotation?

Tom 

[Migfan]

Was the 6 pounder ever sent the soviets under lend/lease?  I wonder because the soviets had a good anti-tank gun in the 76.2mm.