P3176353 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
This will be my 80's build the Chieftain was upgraded in the mid 80's because it was found the newer soviet tank riffles could penitrate its frontal armour so they did an upgrade on the frontal armour for all chieftains after the upgrade all chieftains that had it were classed as mk 10's. I will be building the Berlin Brigade tank from the mid 80's.A bit more history on the 'Berlin Brigade'.
In the mid eightys the new challenger II tank was about to enter service but it was decided not to give these new tanks and new tech to the 'Berlin Brigade' as it was deemed that although they would give a good account of themselves they would quickly be overwhelmed by opposing forces. So how do you go about improving your odds -
After the end of World War II, under the conditions of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements, the Allied forces occupied West Berlin. This occupation lasted throughout the Cold War. The Berlin Brigade were the brigade-sized garrison of forces based there by the British and American armies* Wikipedia
During the early 80’s, it became blindingly obvious that the Deep Green print schemes of the British army vehicles were far from suitable when set amongst an urban backdrop. It was observed by the Commanding Officer of the 4/7 Royal Dragoon Guards tank squadron in Berlin, that the urban setting was essentially made up of straight lines and an alternative to the camouflage schemes should be sort out.
Straight edged schemes were nothing new. Disruptive ‘dazzle’ schemes had been seen as early as the First World War. Rather than to conceal, these schemes were designed to confuse and mislead. Manually targeting a moving ship with these disruptive patterns proved to be very difficult and increased their change of surviving an attack. Technology however progressed, and the targeting systems at sea improved, hence making the patterns redundant by the end of the Second World War. It was however thought, that perhaps the learnings from the earlier camouflage schemes may well work in an urban environment and give the NATO forces some advantage should they come under fire.
Experimenting with cardboard cut outs of the Chieftain in the windows of his office, the Major experimented with the placement of different size squares and rectangles over the shape of the tank. He found he was able effectively to disguise the shape of the tank through the use of these shapes.
The colour palette of Blue Grey, NATO Brown and White were chosen as it was felt these colours selected the colours of the environment they were in. It was found that the scheme should work with blocks of colour, approximately eighteen inches square and should not be scaled up or down for different vehicles. It was also found that the aerial should be broken into sections of different colour as it would make it all but vanish leaving no visual clues. That said I have been unable to find any photographs supporting this claim.
The new scheme was met with great amusement by the ranks, however once the effectiveness of the scheme became apparent it was soon to be adopted by all British forces serving in Berlin. It was proven that a tank at 100 yards became almost invisible. Every vehicle used the same size blocks of colour in essentially the same pattern in the hope that it would make it harder for the Soviets to determine the strength of the stationed force.
The Soviets were so impressed with the scheme it started appearing on vehicles of the Warsaw Pact.
The kit comes in Takoms usual sturdy box and the contents are molded in grey styrene. The overall detail is top notch on the parts and a bag of track links and track pads are included note that these are not workable tracks so they will be built up around the wheels and fixed in place. The other parts are quite crisply molded and very little in any flash is present. One downfall to be avoided is on page one of the instructions it asks for a part for the wheels these two parts are not on the wheel sprues but are molded with the turret parts. Two Poly caps are provided these are for the gun pivot mount and not the wheels, there is also a vynle blast bag provided.
P3176360 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176362 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176363 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176365 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176368 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176370 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176371 by andrew purchase, on FlickrTakom also provide some etch and decals:-
P3176374 by andrew purchase, on FlickrThe instructions are Takoms usual affair being glossy and clear to follow with a sprue map and color/paint chart at the start and finishing off with the color plates for painting the tank. You will also notice the Zombie tank depicted from a famous TV show.
P3176375 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176377 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176380 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176381 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176383 by andrew purchase, on FlickrExtra's include the paint set from MIG and there are some reports of the split gun barrel causing problems so the Accurate Armour replacement will be used. I also have a masking set that hopefully will arrive toot sweet but again Takom got the paint wrong on the turret but the masking set rectifies this.
P3176357 by andrew purchase, on Flickr
P3176355 by andrew purchase, on FlickrGonna have fun with this and thanks for looking in
