Chieftain build by Phil Woollard.

[Mark Heaps]

I was also surprised to see so much smoke came from the breach during firing too, I know there would be a extraction fan going like the clappers but it must have been very irritating and distracting during high volume shooting. For those of us who will never experience this type of action, the clip did seem realistic.

No extraction fan fitted. In a NBC ( Nuclear, Biological, Chemical ) enviromnent, it would have drawn in contaminants through the barrel and the open breech. The NBC system pressurised the interior of the vehicle so any leaks were air going out of the vehicle and not contaminated air coming in.

[John Clarke]

I'm surprised to hear that the NBC pack would be running all the time. Air scrubbers/filters don't usually come cheap.

What's the difference between these two GPMG's? other than one's built in the USA and the other in Europe.
The cost of the USA M240 GPMG 1/6 scale model is a lot cheaper than the other on evil bay.

[Mark Heaps]

I'm surprised to hear that the NBC pack would be running all the time. Air scrubbers/filters don't usually come cheap.

In peace time they were not usually changed, if it was so blocked that over-pressure could not be achieved then yes but I never experienced it, but stocks of operational filters were held in squadron lines and would have been fitted if the russians had invaded. I am not aware how often they would have needed to be changed in wartime but trained tank crews do not come cheap either.

Rumour had it that in most cases, the peace-time filters were not fitted. The fast airflow provided for a very efficient fridge for chilling the beer cans.
Mark

[Stephen White]

The fast airflow provided for a very efficient fridge for chilling the beer cans.
Mark

Together with 12 cans in the smoke grenade dischargers and some down the barrel. Gunner had to remember not to depress the gun. Allegedly. The charge bins for the ammunition bag charges were cooled too. Only crew comfort Chieftain lacked was a crew heater, oh and sound proofing, and comfort, and ......

John. They'll both do for the commander's machine gun (They both represent the original Belgian/US licence built FN L7 GPMG). Without getting too technical, there were two GPMG on Chieftain and they were subtly different. The L8 coax doesn't concern us. The commander's MG was an L37 which could be used dismounted as a conventional infantry weapon. In the ground role, a pistol grip and butt were fitted and the barrel had a flash suppressor like this:

l7a1.jpg (36.37 KiB) Viewed 735298 times

For the mounted role as the commander's MG, a barrel with a flash eliminator was fitted and the butt was replaced with a back plate. There were three types of mounting, the later versions allowed the pistol grip to remain fitted, so you can get away with leaving it on.


These are the L37 and L8 as mounted in Chieftain:

[Mark Heaps]

The charge bins for the ammunition bag charges were cooled too.

Alledgedly the charge bins were the ideal place to store the bread loaves to keep them as fresh as possible for as long as possible, and the IA ( Immediate Action ) on any misfire was for the loader to count the loaves of bread and the charge bags in case he had rammed up a loaf of bread behind the projectile.

[John Clarke]

I'm beginning to think these tanks were packed with food like a WW2 submarine. where did you keep the pool table?
Thanks for the info on the L7, I thought the GPMG's were pretty much the same, The 1/6 models start at around £4 inc P+P and seem to come in kit form. I might order one, it could help to fashion one in metal, though the way my ordering lucks going at the moment I'll probably get a AK47.

[Phil Woollard]

After much searching and cussing at Lego Chieftains I found this example, it's labelled as a MK3, I do like the sand and black contrast, I like it alot!

[Stephen White]

Phil, it's probably just a poor colour render of the NATO/BAOR Green and Black scheme. If you need to be true to the original, Chieftains weren't painted in sand and black, certainly not in UK service and probably not in any of the export countries. The BATUS colours were Light Stone and NATO Green.

The colour standards under BS 381c are:

NATO Green - 285
Black - not coded
Light Stone - 361

Most of the export customers' tanks were delivered in Light Stone or a similar colour.

[Phil Woollard]

Thank you Stephen, noted, we could do with the entire Chieftain in service colour pallet collection, similar to what we get with the older AFV's, most prominently the Axis vehicles like the Tiger time line. These would probably be artists impressions as so many of the photos of the earlier Chieftains were photographed in black and white.

[Mark Heaps]

I'm beginning to think these tanks were packed with food like a WW2 submarine.

Not sure about the tank crews, but my crew always put aside the corned beef, processed cheese and potato powder for emergency rations. You could be tired as hell due to lack of sleep, cold and wet and could not carry on. Then the corned beef cheesy pom came out and you were refreshed and carried on.
On one Medman in BATUS, we kept the sqn CRARRV operational even though we missed about 5 replens on the trot due to taskings. We were taking fuel off the vehicles we were recovering, swapping empty water jerry cans for full ones, and begging for food. When we finally did manage to hit a replen, the vehicle commander was threatened with administrative action as we had broken into the issued emerngency rations and needed them replenished. We were starving and were going to rip the head off this admin bloke. End result was we got a commendation for carrying on as long as we did. SQMS and Tiffy got a bollocking for not getting out to us with fuel, food and water. We just did what we would have done in wartime.

[John Clarke]

Well Mark, that's rather a sobering experience and puts into focus the hardships placed on our fighting forces.
I think I'd have had to had a quite chat, not just with the admin bloke but with the rest of the "team" who must have known that you were out on your own. What happened to the notion "to leave no one behind?"

[Mark Heaps]

What happened to the notion "to leave no one behind?"

That is an american thing and has cost them lives. Not a notion I ever experienced during 22 years of service with HM Forces,

[Mark Heaps]

Vehicle recognition. Mandatory annual test. At one Cavalry unit I was attached to, the instructor stated he was selling raffle tickets, proceeds were going to a good cause. Buy a ticket and you have passed, buy a book of tickets and you have passed and can leave immediately. Myself and the VM Sgt had tanks to fix so were at the front of the queue. If the tanks are out in front of us as they should be , we would never see an enemy tank. The rest of the fitter section quickly followed us, they could not afford a book of tickets but tank crews sponsored them to get them away to fix their vehicles.

[Phil Woollard]

Great banter you guys we are learning much, Mark I envy your experience with the AFV's in service but wouldn't have put up with the long, cold, dirty, skinning knuckle, back breaking work that you talk about, I preferred blowing things up (there's a" KEY WORD" or two for the Government!).

Has anyone heard anything from Armortek reference the sounds and the associated special functions that we are expecting with the chieftain?

[Stephen White]

Good morning Cornwall....

Phil, the default setting for bazooka plates is that they were almost always fitted. (Why wouldn't you, they made a perfect table for cooking). The exceptions were that Chieftains acting as "enemy" on major Field Training Exercises (FTXs), sometimes took them off to aid identification by "Friendly Forces" and sometimes the rear plates were removed if in particularly muddy conditions, you needed to clear the final drives. We much preferred to keep them on to reduce the dust cloud that caused havoc with breathing (engines and humans) and of course increased your likelihood of being seen from a distance. Apologies for the poor quality photos, they were taken on one of those awful 110 spy cameras, all I could carry at the time.