New to Chieftain

[Steve Cope]

Hi All
Just to introduce myself, I am another Steve, Ex Army, REME, I am in the process of building the Panther G 1944, so was very excited to be able to travel from Wales to the Armotek open day, what a great day was had, meeting and speaking to a lot of fellow enthusiast, gaining a lot of knowledge and finding out the mistakes I had done thus far, hopefully I will be able to rectify.

To the reason of this post, I was able to put a deposit on a completed Prototype Chieftain, missing parts, but hopefully these will be able to be sourced in time, so in the near future I will hopefully be able to gain some build knowledge from this group.

On another note I met up with Mark, fantastic chieftain you have, hoping, when finished mine will be to your standared, sorry I did not get you surname, you said that you posted your complete build, could you please point me in the right direction to follow?

Hoping to communicate with you all in the future.

Steve

[John Clarke]

Welcome to Clan Chieftain Steve, I hope you enjoy your new project. There's loads of information on the general forum for the build and in the Chieftain section for all manner of detailing, partial and completed builds to let your imagination run riot for that final masterpiece.
Phil Woodard complete build is a fantastic reference and well worth read to get you up to speed.
I wondered if the two Chieftain's would find new homes after the open day.
Looking forward to your posts on the Forum.

[Steve Cope]

Hi John

Thank you, I will check out Phil’s post, I have time to check a lot of the post as I have not got the tank yet

Steve

[Steve Cope]

Hi

Just a quick question about the Chieftain, could you tell me what Mk 2-3 0r higher it is based on?

Steve

[Stephen White]

Steve - the Armortek Chieftain represents a Mk 5. I've not published these notes before but they show the research which went into the model, before Kian and the team measured prototypes at Bovington and did the detail design.

Enjoy your build. Good to have another Bluebell on board.

[Steve Cope]

Hi

Thank you very much for the information, hopefully I will be able to purchase and collect soon, Kian and Chris, in the mean time are getting a list together of the missing parts and with luck have them in stock or are able to get hold of.

Must admit it is a long tome since being called Bluebell I was in from 1980 until 1995, left joined TA, then rejoined the real Army again to go to Bosnia in 1997, when was you in?

Steve

[Steve Cope]

Hi

Just a quick question, any recommendations for books reference the Chieftain?

Cheers

[Charles A Stewart]

Any use?

Some Chieftain references

Happy reading.

Charles

PS there is a Haynes too

[Steve Cope]

Hi Charles

Thank you for the information, I must admit I have orderd the Haynes Manual, out of the books you are displaying, which ones have been the most beneficial?

[Charles A Stewart]

Evening Steve.

Thanks for getting back to me.

I am no expert on the choice of references. I went for the 'scatter gun' approach but I think it has paid off, lots of info from different angles, it all helps.

Richard Kent's book certainly gives a good insight to life with as well as development of the Chieftain. And as you have the Haynes manual too, a good references as well.

The however is, there are quiet a few folks on this forum who actually operated Chieftain, maybe these to are the folk to sound out.

Also just look at the builds on the forum, shouldn't take too long

Please get in touch though, if there is anything my limited knowledge can help with.

Take care
Charles

[Steve Cope]

Morning Charles,

Thank you, hopefully I will be getting the Haynes Manual tomorrow, and with luck I will be able to pick up the Chieftain when Kian gets back from his break, hopfully with a list of what is missing and what Armortek can supply at a reasonable price . Then it is asking lots of question of the community, I am looking at your recommendation Chieftain Britains Flawed Masterpiece.

I also supported Chieftain during my military career but on the Chieftain ARRV

Keep safe and enjoy life

Steve

[John Clarke]

From my own experience I tend to prefer the older books, they tend to focus more on the MK5 as opposed to the later MK's as found in the
Flawed Masterpiece, I also found most of the info and similar pictures in this book are available on the internet for free.

New book editions tend to use Coloured line drawings a lot, which are generally inaccurate. Just the other day I looked through book where the only decent pictures were on front and rear cover (see below), It did cover Nato camo colouring on several Vehicles but at £50+

Usually with the title "Chieftain", books come down to reference written material and lot's and lots of pictures, colour pictures preferably.

My advice would be to buy secondhand. For written reference Rob Griffin and George Forty.

For pictures, Haynes, New Vanguard and the odd Tankograd paperbacks. Try to get a look in side first.
The photo Sniper book is very good, a long with Chieftain down range for those odd pictures showing the Tank without it's tin work.

It's nice to have a hard copy, but searching the internet for pictures like a "walk around" can be very positive too.

Don't get conned and spend oodles of cash, because you can't always judge a book by it's cover, even if there's beauty adorning it.

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[Steve Cope]

John

Thank you for the great advice

[Steve Cope]

Hi

I am looking at options for batteries for the chieftain and found these, ECO-WORTHY 30Ah 12.8V Lithium Battery LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate Rechargeable, will two of these be sufficient?

Thanks

Steve

[John Clarke]

I think they will be ok, but you must get a decent matched charger to go with them. You'll probably have to charge them independently, so access to the batteries or two isolated charging circuits maybe required. I'm sure the LiFePO4 Lithium Iron Phosphate brigade could give you some pointers.
I stayed with the AGM type battery for simplicity for now.