Here’s a bit of an unusual one for you - the US Army WWII SCR-511 Radio Set, aka the “Pogo Stick,” the “Horsey Talkie,” or the “Guidon Set.”
Not many collectors or enthusiasts know much, if anything about this set. Most who are familiar with it believe that it was only ever used in training. However, the SCR-511 was not only used in combat, but it was the primary US Army infantry company to battalion to regiment set during Operation TORCH, and later during HUSKY and on the Italian mainland it remained the main company to battalion set until it began to be replaced in 1943 by the famous SCR-300 “Walkie Talkie.” Even then, for those infantry divisions deployed into combat in the MTO before 1943 it continued to be their primary infantry company to battalion set until the end of the war.
It was also used by US infantry divisions in the PTO into 1944. (Again, especially by those divisions deployed to the theater before 1943.) I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone model this radio set, so if you have an MTO / Italian campaign project in mind, here’s something unusual you could add.
At any rate, in addition to scale modeling, one of my other hobbies is collecting militaria. I’ve recently managed to complete my SCR-511 radio set, so here are a couple of happy snaps of it and a link to the final draft of my SCR-511 Radio Set Research Monograph.
Research Monograph: SCR-511 Radio Set “Pogo Stick”
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Wow Mike, just when you thought you’ve seen everything, here comes this radio set. I along with many others know next to nothing about commo equipment except for the stuff we used when I served. Even then I knew almost nothing except how to press the talk button lol. That’s a very very interesting piece of equipment. Not sexy of course like tanks, trucks, cannons , jeeps etc but amazing.
Now who is gonna scratch build this thing? Plenty of horses in35th scale out there!
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Nice article. A wonder that they didn’t come up with a new stand for it.
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@Dan: Well, the guidon portion housed the antenna when it was collapsed. Since the extending the antenna and collapsing it was how the set was turned on and off (like the SCR-536 “Handy Talkie”), I suppose a change to make a more practical stand would have been a really major redesign. At the same time that the SCR-511 was being manufactured, the SCR-300 (the radio that the infantry really wanted) was in full-on development. By the early autumn of 1942, the SCR-300 was approved for production, and the SCR-511 had only just been fielded for a couple of months (in time to use during the TORCH landings). So, in addition to a major re-design, I’d guess that the timing for specifying such a change was also over-come by events.
@metalhead85: A mounted figure with the SCR-511 would be really interesting, but the Cavalry never really had a chance to use it before the Army Chief of Staff, Marshall, disbanded the horsed cav. I think the photos of the “511” with mounted troopers actually show one or more of the prototype sets being tested or demonstrated in the autumn-winter of '41-42 (given the state of the bare trees in the background, certainly no later than very early spring of '42).
For anyone interested in the SCR-300 “Walkie Talkie,” here’s the link to my research monograph for that set:
Research Monograph: SCR-300 “Walkie Talkie”
I’m also working on similar research works for the SCR-536, the SCR-195 (the ORIGINAL “Walkie Talkie”) and the battalion sets starting with the SCR-284.
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