Sort of sounds like you’re a Chieftain fan then?
Who’d have thought?
Tongue decidedly in cheek.
I’d appreciate that photo & dimensions if possible?
Mal
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Lol… Don’t get me wrong, Chieftain could be a huge biblical pain in the butt, but like I said and I will stick to this 100%, in its day from when it got IFCS for that cold war period I would put it as the best all round MBT on the field … And would of felt safest inside it going to war…
I will get that padlock and do a few pics for you mate ok 
@AfvAficionado , Mal - as promised some images of the padlocks we used on the bins and loaders hatch.
I didn’t have to bother with digging out my garage as I had an old u/s one in my desk at work I was going to exchange.
Our brand we used were exactly the same as this, made by Squire. As you can see the key lock cover sits within a sort of T frame and the key slot is protected by a sliding cover.
Forgot to say the padlock is 12mm wide as well. Hope they are useful
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Nice detailing there. Good luck for the many padlocks to make.
The AMX 30 was not the best for sure. However the B2 evolution was another story with a really good hit capability at night and even on the move. French doctrine preferred mobility to protection which was the exact opposite to the British one.
Olivier
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Thanks Johnny
Looks like I’ll have to get cracking then…
Mal
When on exercise Mal, the padlocks would be either unlocked and then just locked back onto the hasp only so the bins were always open when the crew were on the vehicle or they would be removed altogether and just kept as one in a storage container in the turret.
In camp they were not really used as all the wagons were dekitted and veh kits were kept secured on troop cages.
Hi Johnny
Cool. The hasps on my bins don’t attach to the lids, so whether the padlocks are there or not, can still be opened - a slight cheat.
Mal
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Did some minor bits tonight after work, just more individual detail painting.
Did the mounted ammo box and the 2 in the basket. Started dirtying up the engine deck covers. Made a start on the vision blocks, followed Olivier’s suggestion and mixed up some Tamiya smoke and clear green.
Pics are in no real order.
Using a heavy graphite pencil on some of the areas that tended to get worn down. And I also tried to get in with my smallest brush to paint the GPMG loading tray silver…
One thing I seriously can’t remember was what colour the BATUS cam nets were, something is telling me they were sand and green…or plain sand… Anyone remember or have a pic of one…
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After watching the clip, I get the feeling that the list was meant to be different to everyone else’s list and fuel a little debate rather than be technically correct.
It really depends on your focus of fit to circumstances, which this video lacks. He harps on about the mistakes the engineers should have questioned, when that argument is as wide as the Amazon… Who dreams up the ideas first - usually the design engineer… and that idea is sold to the punter. Some engineer had to come up with the idea of a multi-fuel engine for someone to say 'hey we want on those in our tank"
To list out 5 vehicles for a topic like this generic ‘worst’ label, you need to have a narrow focus of what exact aspect it is that is being evaluated, not the broad brush ‘from an engineers’ point of view used. ‘Worst’ covers so much. Look at David Fletcher’s review of the Valiant. The engineering design flaws on that far exceed any of the flaws this dope used in any of his top 5. In the Valiant you have to change drivers every 10 miles due to exhaustion, and then you might have to chop the driver’s leg off to get him out, or he gets concussion when he raises the seat to look out the hatch, and so on…
I have seen a list where the Australian Sentinel featured as one of the worst tanks. Lets look at that realistically. What was it intended for - defence of Australia against the Japanese. Then think what tanks would it be used to defend against?
One of the shortcomings they evaluated was armament. The sentinel was armed with what was available at the time and could be sourced - the 2 pounder (the 6 pounder we wanted were still unavailable). However, the Aussies used the Matilda to great effect fighting the Japanese in WW2, a then ‘obsolete’ tank with a 2 pounder gun… sometimes you have to admit that the ‘Harry Potter’ style approach is true - it is not the size of the wand it is the way you wave it.
Even with the 2 pounder ‘issue’, the Sentinel was a design that could accommodate upgrades without much effort - installing the 17 pounder in a larger turret was already planned and they even actually put 2 x 25 pounders in the turret of one to test recoil tolerances for that! Try fitting 2 x 25 pounders in the turret of any other tank of the time.
In the end it was not poor performance, armament or any other fault that terminated the Sentinel going into full production, it was just that it was realised it would never be needed.
So clearly you can argue many points, anyway you like, against just about anything. But lets be honest. Even the Chieftain multi-fuel engine is not the worst tank engine decision ever made, by far, and to use just that to substantiate it as the worst tank ever, shows how shallow the opinion actually is.
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I couldn’t of put it better
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And this will be my last reference to this armchair tank expert idiots supposed rational about the engine…
Its is documented that the initial and only the initial engine run had reliability issues, and these had been largely phased out I think towards the late 70s.
In its concept phase it was designed to be a leading edge engine and once the initial issues had been resolved, it was a very good engine. It was designed to use multi fuel, which it could do ( and it wasnt meant to use multi fuel in peace time, there was no need, this was meant as a war time requirement to allow the crews to utilise any fuel they came across !)
The engine design allowed for a lower vehicle silhouette due to the engine being a dry sump and the oil being held in a reservoir and pumped into the engine. It was designed for easy maintenance and removal (complete with the sealed cooling system) and replaced with a 4 hour turn around.
It should also be noted that these engines were never used like a normal car or even hard working truck engines. These tank engines are literally hammered to death by the crews. Normal tactical driving of jockeying between positions and fast short moves from A to B would be done in low gears and near on max revs ( this is a 60 ton tank you are throwing around and trying to get moving !! ) To get it turning at slow speed or in neutral requires close on max revs. It deserves a little bit of respect !!! and if it had been soooooooooo bad … dont you think the Army head sheds at the time would of gone “hang on, we need to rethink this and get a new one” …???
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Really coming along beautifully Johnny. Great job on the details!
As for the Chieftains being on a worst tank list ……biggest load of BS I’ve heard in a long time. Every tanks got its issues.
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Some really fine detail work on those bins Malcolm- outstanding!
Have you thought of making resin copies ?
Great work there!
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Thank you kindly Richard
Started on the stowed cam net in the basket. It’s a base coat of Tamiya desert yellow.
Also did a rough outline of the D10 with NATO green.
Regarding the camnet I still can’t remember what BATUS ones were, a voice in the head is telling me it was like a 2 tone desert sand colour and a slightly darker shade. Once that drys I will detail the edges of the basket again.
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hi johnny, the one and only time I was there in batus 2002 they were sand colour normal nets, gulf 2 baracuda came in.
frank
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Well I bit the bullet and masked up the white arc lines on the turret… Me and masking usually don’t get on well…
But this time the Tamiya masking God was kind to me 
…there is one very tiny bit that needs touching up to get back a straight line, just in front of the gunners sight on a double curve, other than that I am very happy with it.
I am not bothered about where the actual white line ends towards the turret ring, there was very little uniformity to them; some ended just to the front of the gunners sight, some where the turret starts to curve down, some by the MBSGD’s, others all the way to the bottom of the turret …
Dry fitted the 22 decals Jim @iwatajim was kind enough to let me have, and the 3 turret ones will need to be cut down to fit and I will also need to scratch a C/S plate as the Accurate Armour one is too small. Luckily a good old CVRT etch mudflap will fit the bill nicely…
more tomorrow chaps
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Looking really great John, the attention to detail is superb, 
.
Excuse my ignorance, but what were the ‘white arc’ lines used for, 
?
G 
The white lines are a safety zone to fire the weapon in, normally called 45s
line up with target, check that no vehicle or troop’s are within the white line arc, then do the normal fire drills, this is in use for peace time training,
war that’s something else.
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As Frank says G.
The message you would sometimes hear in your headsets from safety would be “D31, check your 45s”… You then know there is possibly an issue within your arc on a particular bound so you double check and then check fire if needed, possibly until the next bound when it was safe to fire.
The lines on the turret roughly make up 90°, which is then split down the centreline to give you 2 45° angles.
BATUS is a battle group exercise and it would encompass all arms training with a gradual build up from Troop, Sqn and then combined with the infantry elements up to a live Battle group exercise.
The infantry would usually find great mirth in being able to brass up a tank and get away with it … I think pretty much every Med man I did we would find various 7.62 - 5.56 holes in bins once we got back to the dust bowl at crowfoot.
And in no way did a certain crew brass up the 0B callsign …lol… 
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