Amusing Hobby Conqueror Mk 1

To keep any Conqueror afficionados occupied while I carry on painting and building, I stumbled across this, which is not uninteresting I feel:

Conqueror Tank Firing Control - YouTube

Sadly, I can’t seem to find any others in the series.

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That brought back a few gunnery memories :+1:

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I actually love these old training films - great for modelling details and uniforms.

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Great film Brian. Had a quick peek on my phone just now as I’m out and about at … the tank museum would you believe! Pop over here a lot for reference pics etc. Will be going to see the mighty Conquerer shortly.

Will watch the film properly back home on the big screen.

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PS. Nice work on the Champ!

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Yes that is a great film. I love that period of time as well. I noticed the Conqueror didn’t have as much of a shiny finish as shown in other photos. Nice job on your project so far Brian.

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Thanks Richard; there’re plenty of photos out there showing it in a matt finish, even when reaching the regiments in Germany, where one might expect a certain (peacetime) othodoxy, but BAOR appears to have been quite a driving force regarding painted camouflage schemes, not just on their Centurions but also on Conqueror, which being so large probably needed a careful bit of tactical handling, and this is long before the black/green scheme came into service in 1971.

This is quite a poor image but shows a sort of counter-shading colour scheme:

Conqueror BAOR (3)

and of course, we shouldn’t forget more traditional methods should the need arise:

The gloss Deep Bronze Green colour didn’t reappear until around 1955 (having been used as a pre-war colour), so early pics of the then new Conqueror were indeed often in matt; whether or not that was the WW2 SCC I have no idea.

Lastly, a colour pic showing some foliage including purple heather(!):

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“Sarge, there’s a large shrub out on that flat featureless plain, and it keeps moving…”

“Don’t be silly, boy, there’s no enemy tanks here!” :grin:

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Dunno what you mean Tom:

Conq (1)

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Is that big huge bush meant to mean something ??

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Camouflaging armour is beyond my experience but I do recall helping with the scrimming up of the CO’s Land Rover during my time in a TA Infantry Battalion; this was in the stripped down mode - sans doors, roof canvas etc - and often, depending on who turned up at weekends (always a variable with the TA) I was either his Driver or Radio Operator (!). It was a lengthy task - chicken wire, then Hessian and plastic scrim, let alone adding foliage once we were on the training area. Mind you, the end result was impressive, and we merged very effectively into the most that say, Salisbury Plain, could present.

The effort required to camouflage the images of Conqueror I’ve shown, is beyond my imagination; it must have taken ages.

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It must be bush migrating season!

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Yeah it must have taken half a forest to camo one of those beasts.

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I just have to say that were I crewing a Soviet IS-3, T-10, ISU-122 etc, I might be more than a little worried if I couldn’t identify these Conquerors should, should I be advancing across the north German plains on Day 1. A 120mm’s worth landing on my glacis plate might concentrate the mind a little!

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Yeah that will definitely ruin your day!

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Thankfully, we never had to worry about live cam in Germany as there was a ban on it when I was over there. :+1:

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Yes, I remember that; all we did was deploy our wagons with Hessian and cam nets, the reason being that we weren’t allowed to desecrate the German countryside. However, I noticed it didn’t apply to the Budneswehr, who appeard to be permitted to strip out whole forests!

image

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very true … the amount of times we would drive past a Leopard 2 covered in half a fir tree forest I often wondered why they could and we couldnt … not that we wanted to mind you lol

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Yep, not allowed to touch the German trees! Camo nets only!
Ken

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Yes I remember that well. Don’t touch the trees.

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