Chinese Eye Chieftain

[Mark Heaps]

Hi Stephen,

A few questions about the Zero-Bravo photo.
In all the Cavalry regiments I was attached to, D Sqn had the lazy-D surrounding the call-sign. Your photo shows what appears to be a rectangle which I would associate with B Sqn. Did RTR use a different way to distinguish between squadrons visually ?

Red marking on the right hand turret bin ? Were you playing as OPFOR (Opposing Force, ie the enemy ) on that exercise ?

Rod sticking up at left hand rear of turret. Elevated mount for the winky-pot ? ( Rotating amber beacon used during road moves )

Kindest regards
Mark

[Stephen White]

Mark, the lazy D tac sign for the fourth squadron was introduced in 1950. The rectangle replaced it in the early eighties. You could, tongue in cheek, say that the Cavalry were a bit slow to catch on, but the truth is that many commanding officers disliked the change because they held that the rectangle was too easily confused with the square of the second squadron. The lazy D did therefore survive beyond its sell-by date although some regiments, notably King's Royal Hussars when they went into Kosovo in 1999, preferred an upside down triangle.

4th Tanks adopted the rectangle as soon as it was promulgated. We were accustomed to repeating the sign on the turret side but I see on this photo, the rectangle was painted vertically.

Both BAOR and RAF(G) adopted "tone down" in the eighties as the threat increased and our traditional yellow on blue callsigns were replaced by black on green (which meant you struggled to read them from more than a few metres away).

0B.jpg (89.44 KiB) Viewed 11368 times

As Chieftain was leaving service, the fashion reverted to a more visible colour for call signs and tac signs. These are Chieftains from 1st and 4th Tanks rehearsing for their amalgamation parade in Sep 1993:

Red Cross - yes, one way of temporarily identifying a force acting as enemy (OPOFOR). As I mentioned above, we were subsequently given the great privilege of forming the first professional OPFOR in Canada, when I was commanding 2nd Tanks.

Rod - yes, bloody nuisance and when the light was on, it blinded you, making the whole deal less safe. How you could miss a 60 ton tank on the road..... but some didn't. Emerging from a side road under RMP guidance, one of ours sliced open an impatient Carsberg driver's beer tanker. You've never seen the military moving so fast with so many containers......

[Mark Heaps]

Thank you Stephen.

If it could help other builders, the first cavalry unit I was attached to was QRIH in Jan 1987, I was C Sqn fitter section, Duke of Edinburgh Sqn I believe was in Berlin. We disposed of the Chiefys and got Challenger 1. Sometime in 87/88 QRIH was replaced in york Barracks, Munster by 14th/20th Kings Hussars and we became D squadron fitter section. We had the lazy-D.
From 1989 to 1994 I was attached to an artillery regiment, before going back to tanks as D Sqn Fitter Section in QDG at Sennelager. We also had the lazy-D.
After 3 years there, I spent 6 years at 2nd line before going to A Sqn fitter section RDG. Not sure whether they were using the lazy-D or the rectangle for D Sqn. If we were doing our job correctly which was intimate support to the squadron, we would very rarely see a vehicle from a different squadron or unit.

[Mark Heaps]

Standard solution during my time to prevent the winky-pot from blinding you was to cover 120 degrees of the dome with black nasty ( thick heavy duty sticky tape that we had ) and then mount the winky-pot on the stalk so it was only visible from the rear of the vehicle.

Warning to oncoming vehicles was not really needed. The main intention was to warn vehicles approaching from the rear that we were slow moving traffic.
Mark

[Stephen White]

Warning to oncoming vehicles was not really needed.

Mark, of course. Forgive me, I was only attempting to introduce a bit of humour. In fact, it amazed me just how blind (or impatient), some drivers were. We had an ARV hit a glancing blow from the front by a speeding VW Beetle. The blade neatly sliced off the roof, thankfully though the driver retained his head. He was very cross, until we pointed to the beer on his back seat and the warning triangle (which our gallant REME were in the process of putting out). He backed off when the Polizei arrived and smartly marched him off to the jail. Fortunately for him, the beer had gone....

The green and black camouflage was renewed from time to time with paint which was said to have some limited capability to absorb Infra Red, which was thought to be the chosen Russian night vision technology of the day. The layout was generally freestyled by crews. One aspect of the tank really stood out at a distance, the bottom of the bazooka plates.

There was actually a prescribed pattern but it was rarely followed. It highlighted the need to paint the lower edge of the bazooka plates entirely in black to minimise the contrast with the shadow. I've not seen many examples of this being done but we did get the tanks in my Squadron done for an exercise but it was only partially effective in some lights.

Tanks came from base workshops in NATO green and the black was applied in unit lines. Generally, crews brushed it on, with a hard demarkation between colours. Spraying was used, particularly if there was a general repaint of several tanks such as for a major exercise or parade.

Other markings in BAOR would include national insignia, convoy plates, bridge load classification signs, formation indicators and, exceptionally for the Berlin Squadron, a formation sign. I can illustrate these sometime if it's of interest.

[Mark Heaps]

Mark, of course. Forgive me, I was only attempting to introduce a bit of humour.

Hi Stephen, nothing to forgive. I understood and appreciated the humour. Those who have not served may not understand it though, so best if we explain it.

The same goes for black nasty or winky-pot. You and others who have served would have known what I was talking about. A civilian wouldn´t.
REME tracked vehicles generally did not black nasty the winky-pot, we had no need to, we had a big penthouse between the winky-pot and the commanders hatch . ( Penthouse - Locally fabricated framework on top of the vehicle or over the back decks with a canvas cover providing cosy extra room for sleeping or administration. Could be as luxurious as practicality or ingenuity allowed. Whilst attached to artillery, I remoted the BV socket ( Boiling Vessel / kettle ) and remote-start on a 434 up into the penthouse. We could start the vehicle and then have the first coffee of the day without getting out of our dossbags ( Sleeping bags )

"Modifying" the winky-pot in this way did however allow the loaders of the tanks to observe the road behind the vehicle during road moves, by providing illumination without blinding them, and thereby provide advance warning to the commander and driver that it was likely a vehicle would try to overtake.

Kindest regards
Mark

[Stephen White]

Eagerly awaited, first sightings of the Armortek prototype Mk 5 Chieftain at Tiger Day XI. Kian, thanks for whetting our considerable appetites with a real gem of a model. Highlights included a more powerful motor, new type of track, enhanced electronics promised.... lots to anticipate. The size and presence will be outstanding, it's huge. The 120mm L11 gun barrel is the signature image of Chieftain and 20pdr on my Centurion looked puny by comparison.

Chieftain L11 120mm compared with Centurion 20 pdr

New more powerful motor

Commander's cupola

Steel tracks under trial

Impressive gun clamp

Thanks Kian and the team. Roll on September....

[Phil Woollard]

What a monster, love the water pipe exhaust elbows! Can you tell us more about those beautiful tracks?

[Mark Heaps]

Great photos.
Now we just need one 1:6 scale Mercedes van from somewhere so we can have a "Wolfgang" supporting the Chieftains.
Edited 29th April to explain to those who never served and exercised on Soltau.

[andymusgrove]

Thanks for the Chieftain photos Steven. I couldn’t get down yesterday . Went today. . Got some more decent photos of Tiger 131.

Cheers.

Andy

[John Clarke]

Pictures look great, will the Cupola have the ability to turn . It would make a great feature under radio control.

[Stephen White]

John, I don't believe so.

The Cupola AFV No 15 Mk 6 fitted to the Mark 5 Chieftain was a glorious thing, provided with lots of controls which the commander could play with without really interfering with the important stuff the gunner was doing. There was even a rumour that in a well known cavalry regiment, the controls in the commander's cupola of young officers' tanks were painted green, indicating they were allowed to play with them. Others such as the turret traverse and gun elevation duplex controllers were painted red to indicate hands off......

It was complicated and tried to do with analogue controls what later, digital tanks now do well. The cupola provides three functions: it supports the commander's primary task of acquiring targets, it provides a mounting for the commander's machine gun and it provides some measure of visual hand off of targets to the gunner. In theory, by rotating your cupola, you could acquire a target and then, using the contra-rotation facility, re-align the main armament with your line of sight. It was all done by physical linkages and wasn't either quick or accurate. It tended to overshoot because of the inertia of the turret mass and it left the gunner bemused because the target the commander had so carefully identified and laid onto didn't appear as if by magic in the gunner's sight. We much preferred to look through the x1 window, acquire a target and then using the turret controller lay the gun roughly onto the target. The gunner would then complete the fine lay and fire. The only real use for the cupola rotation was to allow the commander to engage with his machine gun independently of the gunner.

In Challenger 2, it's all done digitally and works unbelievably well. The commander has an independent sight and can acquire and designate targets, hand them off to the gunner, who then prosecutes the engagement while the commander is free to look for further targets. It makes for very quick engagement times and rapid killing of multiple targets.

The whole thing was cumbersome and inaccurate, although it did allow you to fire under armour without having to expose your head to fire a flexible mounted gun. The commander's MG was supposed to have an anti-aircraft role. In your dreams.... It might (just) have worked against a hovering helicopter at short range but against fixed wing, it was fantasy land. Once a year, we got to fire live ammunition at drones flown by Royal Artillery soldiers who were into model aircraft. They got very upset if you hit one but that never happened. Until my D Sqn got so fed up that they waited until the operator misjudged his landing and put it down two hundred yards downrange. He vainly tried to call cease fire. Too late. Fourteen 7.62mm GPMGs don't take long to finish off a model aeroplane. We weren't very proud of it but it was very satisfying to see the smug look on his face disappear.

Some bits to look at. The complicated structure:

The rotating ring in red, the fixed ring in blue:

The commander's controls. The selector had three positions, locked, hand traverse engaged and align. The cupola was manually rotated using the hand controller:

[Mark Heaps]

There was even a rumour that in a well known cavalry regiment, the controls in the commander's cupola of young officers' tanks were painted green, indicating they were allowed to play with them. Others such as the turret traverse and gun elevation duplex controllers were painted red to indicate hands off......

Possibly just duty rumour unless someone can confirm it, as when attached to Cavalry I heard the same rumour about RTR tanks.
However it may not have been a bad idea at times. We would have had less faults to fix, but we would also have received less beer as reperations.
On one range package a young officer had to use different tanks for a couple of days until we could get a replacement pack for his. We got his tank working as soon as humanly possibly. On it being fixed and given back to him, he lines up on range for a thermal shoot, finds he has no thermal picture and comes up on the squadron net ranting and raving about how useless REME were, two days immobile and now his TOGS did not work.
It took less than 5 minutes from him reporting the fault for me to go from one end of the range, fix the tank, get to the other end of the range, climb the range tower and report to the Squadron Leader that the tank was back in action.
Sqn Ldr - "That was a quick repair ! What did you do? "
Me - "I switched on the BDCU ( Barbette Door Control Unit ) so that the armoured door could open and the TISH ( Thermal Imaging Sensor Head ) could see down range. "
Sqn Ldr grabs microphone and hits the pressel switch - "Sunray of 40, this is 0A. One bottle of champagne for the Officer´s Mess. Two crates of beer for the REME. And come and see me when you have finished this serial. I do not appreciate MY fitter section being called incompetent. OUT ! "

[John Clarke]

Pictures look great, will the Cupola "ring" have the ability to turn . It would make a great feature under radio control.

Sooooo is that a yes or no then:?:

[Michael Cecil]

Stephen,

Stumbled across these in my photo-archive today while looking for something else (of course!). Thought they may be of some marginal interest.

Interesting 3-colour (?) (or is that 2 colour + discolouration) cam scheme on the short-barreled Chieftain being driven onto the low-loader.

The A/tek Chieftain is going to be quite a model!

Mike