Smokin' out the office

[Tim Page]

Hi Kian, the point i was trying to make is that it is about scale.
I am not saying there should be no smoke at all, just that the effect in 1:6 seems a bit too much in my mind.
I do like the concept though.

Tim

[Stephen White]

....and I've had several decades of firing service and historic automatic weapons and I agree, Jerry. Two significant factors in this are ambient temperature and gun oil. For a tank machine gun, you can't really over-oil it because in action, you might be putting several hundred rounds through a coax or commander's MG and compared with the main armament and engine exhaust, any smoke from the MGs isn't going to give away the tank's fire position. For the infantry however, the issue is different. Concealment of the firing position is critical and it's a cardinal sin to over-oil a weapon and generate excessive barrel smoking. So whereas it would be inappropriate for the infantry, replicating barrel smoke is fine for an AFV model.

Either way, Kian, this is a good bit of kit and it'll be popular. Scale models are about creating an impression and this does that in a way LEDs and sound can't match. So, having put a barrel smoker into my Cent, I'm looking forward to the Armortek version and perhaps a much needed enhancement to the realism of the engine smoker. Thanks for this.

[Jerry Carducci]

Also unsure which of the powders in use during WWII would have produced more or less smoke inherently. I tried to find a comparison between
cordite loaded ammunition common in UK weapons systems versus the IMR extruded tube stuff used over here. Not sure about German and Russian ammunition.

No matter what though between the propellant powder and dust kicked up having some indication that a gun was fired will add to the immersion of the modeling experience.

Jerry