It's no use, I've got to ask. Why did Centaurs have compass bearings painted around their turrets? I could understand if they were on the roof, but they go halfway down the sides as well. I'm not even going to try to guess, I'll only look foolish...

It's actually quite a complex explanation. The 95mm-gunned Centaurs were given to the Royal Marines as support tanks. Now, it was envisaged that, while the landing craft were approaching the beach, the Centaurs on board, could lay down supporting fire. However, to facilitate this, a complex compass arrangement was added to the turret allowing the spotter to get the turret to point towards targets.

Now, it's NOT a new idea. In the 18th/19th century, there were large 'boat-mortars' which used a similar marking system (on the mounting board of the mortar)

Where is the alignment mark? Some where on the top of the hull? Or was it just a guesstamate?

Here's a bit of info on the RMASG Centaurs:

http://www.seayourhistory.org.uk/content/view/472/628/1/3/

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:LnY0Lnfarg0J:www.flamesofwar.com/Portals/0/Documents/RM-Commandos.pdf+RMASG+Centaurs&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=ca&client=firefox-a

Cheers

jjumbo

Great Question!!

..thats very informative guys thanks

Indeed, the original idea was to operate them only from the barges, so initially, the engines were actually removed. The Royal Marines objected to this, and engines were reinstalled, and trained drivers from Army units had to be found so they could be driven ashore (ordinarily, the Royal Marines didn't have armor assets of their own). Incidentally, the new powerplants were Meteor engines, not the original Liberty engines of the Centaur series, so technically, the tanks were now Cromwell Mk VI's. However, nobody ever updated the paperwork, so they went down in history as Centaurs.

That’s what I was thinking too. There would need to be an index mark that enables someone outside the tank to check that the turret is aligned correctly - possibly one at either end, although there don’t appear to be any on that preserved example. Interesting that dead ahead is labelled 180 degrees - tanks must notionally point due south in naval parlance. Then there needs to be a way of ensuring that the landing craft’s own alignment is allowed for, including - presumably - some way of correcting for yaw and pitch. All in all it’s easy to see why the Marines would have preferred to drive them ashore …

And it looks as though Tamiya may have made a mistake with the labelling of their Centaur kit. [i]That’s something you don’t see every day of the week.

Thanks all!