Chieftan 01EB70 at Duxford

[Pete Nash]

Took some images of 01EB70 at Duxford Today.
Applolgies for poor quality, the inbuilt flash didn't work

[Pete Nash]

Interesting use of the side skirt

[Daniel Scholefield]

Wouldn't worry too much about the flash, the built in one usually just bleaches out the middle and puts everything else into shadow. I never use mine unless I have no other option...

[Stephen White]

Pete

This is us in Canada in 1975.

We used the bazooka plate table whenever we leaguered up. Next door on your photos is the "basha" or "tank bivvy", luxury accommodation for four. The alternative, when at a higher state of readiness, was the back decks. Uncomfortable and prone to being covered in diesel and oil but with one supreme advantage - heat.

01EB70 was built by Vickers as a Mk 2 and subsequently upgraded to Mk 6. Some more pics posted recently on FB:

It's displayed in the markings of my Regiment, Fourth Tanks, with the distinctive Chinese Eye, unique to 4RTR. 4RTR traced it's line back to D Coy, the Tank Corps, the first unit to take tanks into action at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette on 16th Sept 1916. The name Dakene, however, is relatively modern. It came into use post WW2. A name beginning in the letters DA signifies a tank in A Squadron. The name derives from Lt Col HW Dakeyne, who commanded 4th Bn, RTC in the mid 1930s and who, I believe, had a DSO and bar from service in WW1. Tank names in the RTR largely date back to the originals applied in WW1. Post WW2, the establishment of tanks in an armoured regiment increased to 57 at one point and there were simply not enough historic names available. Typical of other post WW2 names adopted by 4RTR were DRAMBUIE and DEWAR - well, the Regiment did recruit in Scotland and liked a wee dram.

IWM are intending to close the Land Warfare Hall in order to replace it with a "Collections and Conservation" facility. They say that the contents will be dispersed around the rest of the site but there must be a risk to the collection. Some of it is privately owned and might I guess be returned. Sad day but people generally go to Duxford to see things that fly and the LWH has had a look of decay about it for a while.

[Mark Heaps]

Who stole the two rear bins off the turret ?

[Pete Nash]

Thanks Stephen, I new you wouldn't disappoint with the origins of 01EB70.

When I looked at the position of the Chinese eye, shape of that area of the turret with its long gun I thought that it had been painted to repesent an Elephant's head!

[Pete Nash]

Forgot to add my pennyworth about the LWH.

I think most people go to Duxford for the Museum. Theres no doubt that a lot go to the airshows.

As for 'relocating the LWH.
It has been up for a long time now, Objects are crowded and can't be removed for conservation etc, also it is so dark in there, so to a certain extent I can sympathise. The Tiger for instance can only bee seen from the front as if its emerging from a building to ambush a Sherman.
BOvy on the other hand is light and airy and one can see all round most of the vehicles, but the scenarios at LWH are much better at showing off the exhibits in the context of their use.

When they do come to move it I hope they continue in that vein though it will be strange seeing an AFV in an aircraft hanger if that's what they do.

[Richard Goodwin]

I saw this tank about 2 months ago when our 'team' got a free entry pass . I was hoping it was a Mk10 so as soon as I got in, I went charging up to the East Anglians hanger to be sadly disappointed. I did take some photo's but my iPhone wasn't that good in the low light levels. Having done a little research on the internet, I spied a Berlin Camo Mk10 on some older photo's of Duxford which i believe, was parked outside the Land Warfare before being replaced by an Centurion ARVE. According to preservedtanks.com, this has been put into storage but I know not where. Does anyone know the whereabouts of this tank or least advise how I could find out other than ring Duxford itself? It would be an ideal tank to model if it is still near Duxford!
Regards to all

[Mark Heaps]

The "basha", "bivvy" or crew shelter as it was known during my time. With all the cavalry units I was attached to, the crew always slept in a specific order so that anyone coming to the tank requiring a particular person could go straight to them and wake up only that person, and there was an acronym to remember it by.

In my experience as REME we never had to waken them out of their crew shelter, if we were working on their tank overnight, one of the crew would always be awake with us to make brews, hold torches, pass spanners etc and they would sort our their replacement. The only exceptions were when we knew there was nothing they could do to assist and we ordered them to sleep if they could wherever they were sat. We would then wake them if we needed them , or just before his hand-over time so he could wake his replacement, and we would swear blind he had been awake all the time.

It has taken me a while to remember what the acronym was, it was "cold"- Commander, Operator, Layer ( ie gunner ), Driver

[Mark Heaps]

I wonder what mistakes Stephen has found with the exhibit. So far I have spotted the following.

Missing mounting bolt for the "bazooka plate". After dropping down the "table", both securing bolts would have been put back in a couple of turns so you knew where they were.
Ammo boxes supporting the "table". Not needed to support it. The crew would have stowed any ammunition received and the boxes would have been off to one side to be collected by the SQMS.
4-man ration packs correct, 1-man ration packs are in my experience not. If 4-man packs were not available, you got 10-man packs.
Tracks are slack.
Two salt shakers on the table - one of them would have been binned.
Padlocks fitted to the bins.
Culery laid out on the "table"

[Stephen White]

OK Mark, I'll play......

1.Chinese eye wrong location - should be:

2. Tank name Dakeyne should be either be white on black rectangle or black on the green camouflage
3. Squadron tac sign and callsign missing from NBC pack, turret sides and convoy marking. See below
4. Convoy marking - should either be black and white vertical stripes or should have squadron tac sign and callsign.
5. Unit Identification Signs missing from mudguards
6. Bridge classification markings and Union Flags missing from mudguards
7. Turret basket stowage includes a 5 gall can of oil OM-13. This was used to top up hydraulic start, main brakes and steering brake. From memory, I don't think we routinely carried OM-13 on the tanks. It was much more common to carry OEP-220 (gearbox) and OM-75 (Main and Generating Unit Engines).
8. Turret basket stowage - there appears to be a main armament obturator case in the basket. Mark - help here. I think we carried a spare set of obturators and given their importance, (they seal the breech end of the main armament), they were always carried in the turret or bins.
9. The thermal sleeve retaining straps are loose and sleeve is twisted
10. The cooker on the bazooka plate is a small Number 2 Burner. Tank crews were more usually issued with the bigger No 4 Burner. Some crews replaced them with Calor Gas civilian stoves but intense cold affected them and gas would not have been available in war, so the practice was discouraged. The No 4 burner was pressurised by a hand pump and could produce a spectacular firework display if badly handled or maintained. It was the duty of the last man on sentry stag before revielle to light the burner for the first brew of the day.
11. Random boxes on the turret. Not sure what these are doing there. The tank is fitted with the Solartron Simfire tactical engagement simulation system. It was utterly useless (we did the troop trials on it) and was rejected pretty quickly. The wiz-bangs and receivers are fitted but there should also be a whopping great laser projector unit mounted on the barrel. The boxes on the turret are probably the internal control and interface boxes which should be mounted in the turret in place of the ready-round projectile rack.
12. The long stalk fitted to the turret roof is the meteorological sensor for the Improved Fire Control System (IFCS was the first computerised system to increase gun accuracy). It provided temperature, pressure and wind data to the computers to calculate charge temperature and windage and make corrections. I believe it was only issued to one tank in a squadron and I don't think I ever saw it used or fitted.
13. No commanders machine gun.
14. Tow ropes missing
15. There are two water jerry cans, one on the ground and one in the basket. I believe we only used to carry one and a can of diesel. Chieftain was always short of stowage space.
16. Drivers sight wiper blades missing
17. Drivers mirror fitted but on the right hand side. The tank would have been in Germany and if it was fitted (which was rare), it would have been on the left side to show overtaking vehicles.
18. The road wheel hubs don't show any signs of being recently lubricated. The driver would always check levels on his daily parade and a small amount of oil would be seen around the filler ports. On this tank, the hubs are dry but the front left roadwheel has a big leak - time to call for BLUEBELL (REME fitters).
19. The Don 10 reel is empty. This is the cable reel in the turret basket which was used by dismounted crew to communicate with the turret crew via a handset which was connected to the end of the cable. The other end was terminated in the turret intercom system.
20. The ERM (Equipment Registration Mark or vehicle registration number) is in the wrong font.
21. The camouflage net in the basket wouldn't cover a maiden's modesty and was more normally stowed on the glacis, turret front or NBC pack. It was huge, as it had to cover the whole vehicle and was an absolute b*****d to set up in the dark in a wet wood.

However, not a bad effort for a civilian museum and good to see an attempt to portray the exhibit in context, something the IWM spectacularly fails to do in Lambeth.

Over to you Mark....

[Kevin Hunter]

Mark, seems to me you came second
It’s interesting reading though, thankyou

[Pete Nash]

Wish I hadn't posted the iges now!

[Stephen White]

Pete, you're not getting off that lightly...

I've checked a couple of references and I need to qualify/correct a couple of things:

Obturator stowage. As I thought, the correct stowage for the spare set of obturators was in the turret under the main armament breech.
Bridge classification sign should be on the hull toe plate and the ERM on the nose of the glacis:

The correct stowage was indeed one water and one fuel jerrycan, in the baskets.
The No 2 burner was the the correct cooker as issued but I'm certain we used the larger No 4.
According to the stowage diagrammes the camouflage net was supposed to be in the right turret basket but you'd struggle to get it in. Much more usual was to drape it around the turret or glacis or put it onto the NBC pack, although this screwed the commander's rear vision closed down, which was essential to retiring gracefully.

Cam net on glacis

Cam net on turret, taking care not to obscure optics

Cam net on NBC pack

In Canada, you could stow it along the bazooka plates, safe in the knowledge you were unlikely to lose it against the half dozen trees on the training area.

[Pete Nash]

NOT GUILTY Stephen@

All I did was take some photos for other as a reference for others
AS far as I knew it was a diorama of a Chieftain Leagured up for the crew to have some scran and a kip. I didn't know what was wrong with it

Like lots of others who weren't in the know or in a RTR as missile bomb and rocket fodder for airdales I thought it was good