A Chequered Chieftain at #10

[John Clarke]

Well I'm sure most, as will I, be looking forward to the mother of all Mk10 Berlin Camo Chieftains.(1/6)
Getting everything just right will take some doing.

Hats,Berets and Bone Domes off to you for giving it a go.
Me, I'll chickened out with fluffy camo and weathering to cover my mistakes.

But.......I think you'll need a few important pieces of equipment to get you there.

Patience, sorry no picture

A pair of rose tinted spec's. for those unexpected problems you may encounter. There will be many.

Rose tinted specs.jpg (8.82 KiB) Viewed 3502 times

One of these to measure up accurately. Best rubber tape measure you can buy.

43791 Pirellie.jpg (165.9 KiB) Viewed 3502 times

And Finally
Analyse pictures carefully. Double check, Sometimes things slip out of position like bazooka plates and you could end up drilling a whole load of holes in the wrong place.
hummm I wonder......... Oh well, whats done is done, nothing a bit of filler or weld can't sort out.

[Richard Goodwin]

Great stuff Richard. I’m at the Tank Museum soon, so I’ll take a couple of pics. I’ve sent you an email and PM re Beier. All the best. Stephen

Thank you Stephen.

Have seen the email; I will reply within next few days, just quite busy at the mo so apologies.

[Richard Goodwin]

John,

I have no doubt of the challenges in front me. Why do you think I had 7 months away from it

My cardboard cut outs will be used as templates and attached to the tank as guides. Some of the top tie downs will be adjust on test so to speak. Have already accepted that some parts will probably be wrong no matter what i do unless I total rebuild from scratch and I ain't doing that But at least by dry assembling the tank I can see where they are likely to be and try and correct if poss. When I do finally finish and we all meet up for a run out, we can play spot the Berlin Camo anomaly(s)

[Mark Heaps]

John Clarke´s photos show it how it was in real life.
The top edges of the side-skirts ( not bazooka plates ) never lined up perfectly unless a lot of time, care & physical effort was expended to achieve it prior to a major parade where every thing had to be absolutely perfect to up-close scrutiny.
Mark

[Richard Goodwin]

John Clarke´s photos show it how it was in real life.
The top edges of the side-skirts ( not bazooka plates ) never lined up perfectly unless a lot of time, care & physical effort was expended to achieve it prior to a major parade where every thing had to be absolutely perfect to up-close scrutiny.
Mark

Mark,

Totally agree with you although if the Berlin Chieftains 'side skirts' were out of alignment, so would the block camo which would then mean the tank was uniquely identifiable. This would then defeat the object of them being all the same; we'll ignore the fact that they prob had registration numbers on as well as big call sign letters on the back

[Stephen White]

Richard, the correct term is "Skirting plates", as on the Vickers' drawings. The securing bolt holes were slotted to allow for some variation in height. At the back of the plates, the lower fixing hooks could be distorted in use, and the catwalks onto which they fitted did come in for abuse so it's not unusual to see the tops of the plates at different heights. There shouldn't be more than a few millimetres variation horizontally however. Note that the plates were not interchangeable ie the two centre plates are subtly different sizes. I don't believe it was possible to fit them in the wrong order but could be wrong. So I wouldn't worry about the Berlin camouflage being disturbed. It was painted very accurately to a template as noted elsewhere. All the best. Stephen

[Mark Heaps]

Totally agree with you although if the Berlin Chieftains 'side skirts' were out of alignment, so would the block camo which would then mean the tank was uniquely identifiable. This would then defeat the object of them being all the same; we'll ignore the fact that they prob had registration numbers on as well as big call sign letters on the back

It was not intended to make them look identical. It was the best camouflage scheme for the environment.

Everytime the side-skirts were unbolted for track maintenance, the alignment would change so unlikely to to make a tank uniquely identifiable. Rotating the turret from straight ahead would also change the block alignment.

Close up in street fighting, they would have been obvious but at combat ranges, the Berlin urban camouflage was very effective. I remember seeing a photo taken from a helicopter at 1500 meters with 12 of them in the picture. It took me 5 minutes to spot the first one.
Mark

[John Clarke]

I'm sure when the everything lines up it will be an amazing model Richard, building and seeing the finished Steelbrew system will be awesome.
It's so fortunate that we have living veterans that can steer the way of accuracy. For most of us, the information ordinarily modellers get is just from books or a dusty exhibit. We'll never know or experience the hardships, frustrations and implications they had to manage. After all, generally this is a hobby to most of us.

Accuuracy is relatively important, it is 1/6 scale after all, it promotes the hobby and as much information as we can get is very desirable.

Glad we got the picnic table (bazooka skirt) discussion sorted too.

[Richard Goodwin]

Quite right John. All I have are photos of in-service Berlin Chieftain's in various locations including but not limited too on exercise and of course parades. As an example of this, the pic below shows some tanks undergoing some maintenance checks and cleaning after live firing. The gun is lowered to facilitate cleaning and the skirting plates have been removed to check for loose wheels nuts and any track damage......

Once complete, the gun cover is put back in place, the skirting plates reinstated and all kit stowed away ready for the off.....

I guess they must have got lucky with their alignment just like all the other pictures I have! I have no doubt that they would probably be a few mil out but to all intensive purposes, they are aligned

I believe Berlin Chieftains were painted to a very strict pattern plan with deviations being no more than 2 inches. Yes, the object of the pattern was to blend the tank into the infrastructure of Berlin hence the colour choice but painting them all the same brought about I believe, a tactical advantage in that it made it harder for the enemy to establish the force strength! It also looked good on parades too

I did find a pic on the internet once with a tank facing a camera 100m away with its back to a building. You could just make out the tanks silhouette and I knew it was there somewhere!

Looking forward to seeing how you side skirts end up Mark.

Note:- re-edited to change side skirts to skirting plates

Stay safe everyone.

[Mark Heaps]

The photos are possibly of C Sqn 14th/20th KH late 1980´s, early 1990´s.
The circle indicates C Sqn. Interesting of note is that no callsign within the circle.
The rest of the regiment were in York Barracks in Münster and we had the callsign within the sqn symbol.

Mark

[Richard Goodwin]

Many thanks for that Mark; all useful information.

Worked on the issue with the searchlight over the weekend in that the door doesn't open 90 degrees or more. Think iv'e cracked it....

This now gives me one of my reference points for the stillbrew because I believe the door opens out with its furthermost point going into a cut out in the stillbrew....

I am guessing here and don't actually know for certain that the door goes into that slot but I believe it would be reasonable to assume it does. More than happy to be corrected? Still have a lot of work to do on the searchlight but that can come later; the main focus hear is the stillbrew and its positioning.
On a lighter note, following the Strategic Defence Review, economies have been sought on the L60 engine to increase its fuel efficiency and reducing the load upon it by introducing replacement skirting plates.....

[John Clarke]

Wot, alloy Bazooka skirts?
Nice Search lamp housing mod there Richard. The door opening was always going to make trouble against the turret side.
Go one further and make it R/C.

[Richard Goodwin]

Go one further and make it R/C.

That is the intention John but that's further down the line at the moment. Positioning and alignment are the current goals

[Richard Goodwin]

Its the ATUs turn now......

Sooooo we have to turn this into this!

so first, a little side padding

adding sides.jpg (136.98 KiB) Viewed 3043 times

For me, after filing the extra padding level with the existing block, the next step was to reduce the top, bottom and sides by 2.5mm. That's a lot of filing so I turned to the router again; 0.1mm cuts since there's not a lot holding this baby down.....

It did take a few hours to do on the basis that the jig had to be rebuilt for each side because of the shape! Next it was a little front padding

After filing level, the holes were drilled on the front to take 10BA bolts then the outer casing was constructed. Not only did this need to overhang the front but also, it needed to touch the rear of the turret ensuring its shape was followed......

The bolts were added, the hole drilled for the aerial mount and the fire extinguisher temporarily fixed into position and this is the result...

So the ATU gives us in effect, two reference points for our stillbrew. Firstly, the stillbrew butts up against the side of the ATU and secondly, the bottom of the stillbrew looks like it starts just below the bottom of the fire extinguisher........

Stay safe people!!!

[Charles A Stewart]

Nice Richard.

A concern I have is how do you secure the fire extinguisher safety?

I have managed to use small screws as pegs for the bracket, but don't feel confident enough to rely on superglue

Cheers Charles