Chinese Eye Chieftain

[Stephen White]

Seeing Steve Winstone's superb reflectors, I thought I'd refresh my memory of the lighting arrangements on Chieftain.

This photo from Steve's post shows the right rear side light and the registration plate light (one off, right side only).

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The convoy light is ringed here.

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Driving at night cross country in convoy in dust and smoke presents a real challenge to the driver, who has to maintain contact with the vehicle in front at a set distance without lights. IR was not normally used as it was so easily detectable. With all other external lights switched off, the convoy light provided a small red light (1 on the diagramme below) to be seen directly by a following tank and a downward projecting dim white light which illuminated a convoy marking, which was intended to help a following driver judge distance between tanks.

The convoy marking was rectangle consisting of vertical black and white stripes. At every Halt Parade (a quick check whenever the vehicle was stationary and out of action), one of the driver's actions was to clean the convoy marking.

The convoy marking seems to have changed in the mid eighties, regiments adopting a white rectangle with the squadron tactical sign and the vehicle callsign. (thanks to Dick Taylor for the first photo):

At the front, there were two sidelights and a twin headlight arrangement with IR and dippable white lights. Recognise him?

The driver had a very complicated choice of lighting options. Using his external lighting switchboard, he could select any combination of lights, including full blackout or IR only. The cardinal sin was to forget to switch off the tail lights when driving tactically at night.


I think this is one model which will benefit from a full working lighting array. With LEDs, it wouldn't be difficult to provide the lighting, the challenge will be the switchology on the radio system.

[Stephen White]

Chris Hall's post on painting Chieftain is here:

http://www.armortek.co.uk/Forum3b/viewt ... 6ff#p68528

It's a very timely and useful reference. A couple of things stood out.

Camouflage standard template for MBT. It was policy, for obvious reasons, that no two Chieftains were painted identically, as that could indicate a specific unit to intelligence gatherers such as SOXMIS. Nevertheless, the RAC training pamphlet did give a template which is quoted in Chris' reference:

I've only seen the template used once, when I had to get my squadron to repaint the tanks. It worked up to a point but as soon as the bazooka plates acquired the inevitable coat of dust, much of the effect was lost:

The timing of the introduction of NATO Green/Black is interesting. Chris' reference suggests that the transition from Deep Bronze Green happened after trials in the late sixties, early seventies and that the definitive paint wasn't available until about 1980. I can remember visiting the Blues and Royals in Detmold as a CCF Cadet, probably in 1969, just after amalgamation. This page from the Regimental Journal of 1970 clearly shows the Chieftain's in two tone camouflage, as I remembered it.

By 1971, I was serving with 15th/19th Hussars in BAOR and my troop's tanks were certainly painted in green/black.

This would place the introduction of the two tone camouflage pretty much at the introduction to service of Chieftain. There are certainly photos of trials vehicles at the Royal Armoured Corps Centre, Bovington in Deep Bronze Green:

and of 2RTR in 1968 in a shiny paint which is probably Deep Bronze Green:

but it looks as though an early version of the green/black camouflage was common in BAOR by mid 1971. All of which is pretty academic unless someone is contemplating building their Chieftain as one of the early marks, which would be a good project.

[Mark Heaps]

I do remember one Chieftain ARRV being painted in a nice shiny green in 1987 or 1988. A new craftsman arriving in the fitter section had been tasked to re-paint the vehicle by hand.
When he went to the QMs to get the paint, he did not specify matt so spotting he was a new guy, they gave him a couple of cans of gloss.
Guess what his job the next day was

[Stephen White]

Seeing the two photos above reminded me of Dick Taylor's comment about the application of anti-slip surfaces, which he thought might not have been seen on the early Mk 2s and 3s on first issue. Although it's hard to be sure, it does look at a higher resolution that the surface is smooth. Nevertheless, by the Mk 3, the anti-slip surface was universal. Dick believes it was factory applied and was done with a mixture of thick paint and sand. There was obviously some sort of tooling as there was a pattern which resembles a random version of Zimmerit, albeit that the purpose was very different. These photos show the pattern and the erosion of the surface at the edges. It will be a challenge to replicate, certainly not with Milliput. I haven't done any testing yet but will start with a trial using high build primer. The second photo also shows the Ranging Gun.

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[Stephen White]

A couple of unofficial modifications which were common across the Chieftain fleet. On Steve Winstone's thread about bin catches and latches, I mentioned that crews were always short of stowage and one solution was to add two extra back bins to the turret.

These are the official external stowage diagrammes for the Mk 5:

The idea of stowing jerry cans in the baskets did not find favour. The old Mk 2 initially had a rack for the provision of two jerry cans on the turret side. They can be seen on the 1968 2RTR photo above. These racks, or similar must have materialised in the eighties because this D Squadron tank has stowage added to the outside of the turret basket, together with the back bins.

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and my tank:

There was also a need to carry oils and lubricants but there was no provision for the larger 25 litre cans of oil and coolant which Chieftain devoured.

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One unofficial solution was to retain them on the back mudguards, securing them with a section of fan belt:

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The full Monty is seen here on Mick Graham's painting:

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These would be easy and appropriate additions to the Armortek model.

[Stephen White]

Exercise Keystone gallery now online:

https://military-database.de/1987-keyst ... /#comments

[Stephen White]

Interesting size comparison between Chieftain and T-62. It's a very early Mk 2 with the early NBC pack. Probably taken in the early seventies. Begs the question of where the T-62 came from. One could guess...

[Manny Leung]

For a minute I thought they were real tanks until I looked closely at the tank crews and realized that they were Tamiya models

[Stephen White]

Well spotted Manny, thought I’d get that one through, should have posted it on Phil’s Real or Fake. For anyone who knows the old Tamiya model, the crew postures are a giveaway.

[Stephen White]

It's arrived at last!

It looks very good on first glance. The section on Middle East wars fills a gap in the literature and there are useful 3-views and colour profiles, together with walk-arounds, albeit for Mks 10 and 11 only.

There are some imaginative colour schemes, including the Israeli trials scheme, some artwork by a 3RTR artist, a very interesting Kuwaiti scheme (which I hope someone will attempt) and a pink tank intended for a Household Cavalry officer, which I hope no-one will attempt. Nothing wrong with pink but.... I would question how the colours are represented in the book but if you know the original paint references, which are widely available, there should be no problem copying the schemes in the book.

The author, Richard Kemp, served with 1st Royal Tank Regiment, and knows his stuff. His service though rather colours his choice of photos. Other regiments are available.....

[Manny Leung]

Zombie tank

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How about a zombie tank from the Walking Dead episode 1

[Mark Heaps]

Hi Manny,
On the mornings after a squadron smoker, there were usually a few zombies and walking dead shuffling around

Sqn smokers were barbecues held on the last evening of an exercise after Endex had been called. Copious amounts of beer available and the troops could blow off steam and wind down / de-stress before returning to camp and their families.

Mark

[Kevin Hunter]

a pink tank intended for a Household Cavalry officer

Presumably one of the Life Guards...…. Never the Blues & Royals

[Mark Heaps]

A pink tank may be a military rather than an urban myth, unless someone can provide photographic evidence to prove it.
Whilst stationed at Bergen-Höhne, I did hear the story that the dutch Leopard Regiment that was stationed there were going to be visited by the dutch royal family so they freshly painted a Leopard and had it under covers in the middle of the parade ground in case it rained over night.
Alledgedly when they pulled off the covers just prior to the dutch royal family arriving, they found the tank to be a nice pink shade and units of the british army got blamed for it.

Would we have done such a thing

[Stephen White]

The photo is in Richard Kent's book, as I said.