Richard
I need to check before giving you a definitive answer. I know this helmet and the associated mike controls but can’t swear it was in use during the war in Algeria.
Olivier
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Yes I’m skeptical about the microphone on the helmet. I could change out the heads.
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Richard
from the only picture with a crew I found at Chars français, it looks like there was no mike boom.
Olivier
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Yes thank you Olivier, I’ve been looking through my references and can’t find any pics of crewmen from Algeria with mics. Not many pics at that though, so I’ll just carefully carve them off.
Other than that, the uniforms and helmets are good?
Thanks again for your help.
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Looking at the picture I would say the uniform is correct. The helmet could do the trick providing you remove the earpieces for the communications. Don’t forget to remove the chest radio controls.
Olivier
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Oh yes that’s right. I forgot about those.
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While letting the glue dry for the tracks, I started carving off and sanding the commo straps on the driver.
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Great pics Frenchy thank you, but ive already stripped the driver of his communications gear lol. I’ll probably do the same to the other two crewmen- not sure. It doesn’t look like either pic shows a helmet boom microphone though.
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T-13 is a stowage mount for the .50 cal and in this pic it looks like it’s secured on the end of an open bar type thing. But on some Chaffees it’s a solid plate.
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Looks like a guard to me
H.P.
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I managed to get some more work done on this project. I decided at the beginning to leave the turret/ drivers hatches open so I could use the figure set from Blast. I did add a few turret items from a sprue of a Bronco Chaffee turret, they are the yellow parts; just the seats and gunners controls. The main gun breach is from an old Resicast M4 75mm gun - even though it’s not the same as the one in the Chaffee. I also made a crude drivers seat and a wall next to him to hide the open space next to him.
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Finally got some paint on the hull. The turret interior was painted and given a wash, I will have the hatches open with crew members in them. I also got the driver painted and seated.
As for the red scarf on the driver, I wanted to add a dash of color. Huge artistic license on my part. In my Osprey book on the Algerian War, there is a color plate with a Para with a blue colored scarf tied to his shoulder strap. Apparently these were for unit identification in the field if I understand it correctly. I have no idea if tank crews did this but I went with it anyway. Comments welcome!
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Richard this model looks excellent and the driver looks just right. All AFV crew wear face scarves if they’re in dusty environments and there’s no regs stating what color that scarf has to be. The red scarf does catch the eye and is well done. Good choice.
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Thanks Matt. I doubt it’s historical accuracy but like I said I’m just using some artistic license.
We used brown scarfs or t-shirts at NTC or Hohenfels to cover our faces for sure when we were in the field.
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I’m painting the details now and could use some help with some of the lights on this thing. I have the headlights done , I just have to glue them in place. It’s the others I am not sure about like the one I’m
pointing to with my needle nose tweezers.
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This is the rear view mirror.
Olivier
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