British Mk 2 NBC Suits - AFV Crew

I noticed that too John; I acquired 2 x sets as I can see a lot of options for these, especially if one wanted to ring the changes say, with the Hornet Heads’ British bone-dome helmet.

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Would these guys be more appropriate for a 1991 or 2003 Gulf War vehicle? With a change to the vehicle type helmet instead of berets.

Carlos, regrettably no; by the time of Gulf War 1 they would have been replaced by the Mk 4. See Maximus8425 mention some 4 posts in. So, really Cold War (exercises) only I feel.

Bummer for my Gulf Wars UK AFVs then. Ah well. Looks like from his post I could use them on my BAOR Challenger I and perhaps with an early Warrior. It’s hard to find 1/35 figures in NBC gear. I always liked the apocalyptic look of that stuff… not so much wearing it or the implications of it. But it does have its own sort of horrid forbidden appeal to something in me.

I do know what you mean - full NBC kit (including respirators) does indeed look sinister; I recall on a Corps CPX around 1971 when the NBC state was upped (I can’t remember the exact term) and we were in full kit after a dawn stand-to and on our way to the cookhouse (in such a large formation HQ we had centralised messing); we were in a small German village and it was a misty Autumn morning. The local school children were queueing at a bus stop - school started early back then in the FRG - and out of the gloom came half a dozen British soldiers in full kit; our steps were muffled by the overboots, we weren’t speaking (wearing a respirator has that effect) so to them, amidst the swirling fog, we must have looked positively alien. In any case they all shouted (screamed?) and scattered. Poor little blighters - we must have looked terrifying.

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there and I can bore for NATO.

I think you’d be alright for a Chally 1 and a Warrior; perhaps Johnnych01 or Maximus8425 can confirm, certainly for the tank. These suits would be used up as training stock even after later suits were available.

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Yes, definitely ok for early BAOR Chally1s and early warrior out there :+1:

I would imagine up until about 1990 would be the latest for these. Reason I say that is I remember being a gunner on Chieftain and myself and the driver wore bonedomes due to us being inside all of the time. The commander and operator got to wear headsets over berets but then the fun police (H&S) decided everyone was to wear helmets. Around that time the first crew guard helmets were issued which were a HUGE improvement over the old bonedomes.

Bonedome
K919n2v

Crew Headset

Crewguard, though this is a later active noise reduction set
afv-crewguard-helmet-completed-thales_360_0117fd58f7f1671c8b40187a4c2b44dd

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Sounds like many a Whovian monster scene.

Mal

We would have looked something like this although we were just walking to breakfast:

(Borrowed from the www)

We were wearing helmets and webbing but mostly had Sub Machine Guns not rifles I think. All a bit eerie (and the suits we had were Mk 1s not Mk 3s - just for the record).

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I think the dress state would be 4 romeo

I wouldn’t have thought so. In the sense that there was no point in using up old stock for training purposes. Because, you train with the kit you’re going to be using - especially with (what was then) NBC as the two Mks of kit were very different in how they were donned/fastened etc.

By the time Ch Mk1 and Warrior entered full service, the Mk4 suit was the ‘issue’ kit, and S10 respirators too.

What did happen with the old kit, was it was issued to the TA (they were still using steel helmets, S6 Respirators and SLRs in 1988) - so its possible that if you were creating a kit representing Reservists in action, then I think that would be the only way you could be accurate.

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Just to confirm, the MK3 suit (olive green) was in use on Chally1 and BAOR upto at least the end of 1989/early 90. I have looked back through some old regimental journals to double check.

It’s also worth noting that a very limited batch of MK3 suits were produced in DPM…

The MK4 DPM suit with zipper was not fielded until at least mid 1990…

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Now you mention it, I do vaguely remember the DPM Mk3 suits - perhaps that’s why i’m getting a ‘bit’ muddled. But certainly, Unit NBC Instructors were using Mk4 suits in 1988 in BAOR. In fact, I remember turning up to my first NBC training at my first unit (28 Amphibious Engineer Regiment, Hameln) in early 1989 and the NBC Instructor, a WO2, had ‘modified’ his S10 drinking tube to take a cigarette!

I do stand by my assertion that old Mk3 suits would not have been used in lieu of Mk4 suits for training purposes (for regular units) though.

Don’t forget thought how tight the British Army/MOD are; in an ideal world, “yes” one would use what you’re going to use on the day, but for training, in my experience we were hardly ever issued the latest or state of the art; if a QM has loads of X he often won’t be bothered to indent for Y until X has all been used up - it’s just too labour intensive let alone the paperwork - all those stores vouchers etc(!) However, I fully admit to being Combat Service Support in the scheme of things - perhaps things were different for those a bit further up the food chain.

Hopefully though, this discussion is all grist to the mill for those who wish to utilise the Red Zebra product accurately.

Thats right, as you said the drills were different … we had 2 sets of DPM issued, one was for exercise and training use the other was kept sealed in the troop stores.

I also seem to remember that when they first came out, the Mk4s also came in olive green for a while.

In those days, as I recall, the highest dress state was 3R (this was when it was called NBC). Under CRBN, the highest dress state is 4R.

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That’s for updating me, I didn’t realise that they had updated the states.

You might find this apposite - just received from a still-serving friend of mine:

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Brilliant!