Hi folks.

Following on form my Crusader Gun Tractor build Bronco have brought this build forward with the release of their 17 pdr Gun Crew.

So the players.









Al

Hi Al,

Will you re-mount the tractor & gun on a new base, or do the gun on a separate one? Looks nifty either way!

Tom

Hi Tom,

the tractor is only on one of my generic bases I use to photograph things on quickly. The plan is to link both elements on a new base/

Cheers

Al

On the first two elements the ammo and crew Bronco have produced some nice work here. The Ammo set provides 4 styles of ammo and four stykles of boxes with markings. These can be modeled open or closed and are a build in themsleves.

On the crew by and large these are very nicely done. My only observation so far is they tend to have flat bums so I've bulked this are out a little when filing any gaps.

The crew come with the double cartridge ammo pouches which is a nice new element in British kit. These were issued to non teeth arms and Corps troops until about the end of 1943 when the Bren Ammo pouches became standard issue to all. So I've replaced these with some Tamiya pouches. The heads are nicely done but again as the model will be late war I've replaced these with a set from Ultracast.

The double ammo pouches will come in handy for early war builds though and the heads make some alternative replacements for the Tamiya Infantry.



Ammo











Crew









You also get a set of alternative arms/hands and binos for the commander



and included in the Crew set is a tree of their British Equipment so more useful things there.



Cheers

Al

Hiya Alan,

I have been looking forward to watching the build process and detail of one of these weapons that was so important to our forces, enabling them to have a chance at hitting back and defeating the heavily armoured and hard hitting tanks of the Panzer forces, that were able to cause so much damage to the Allied forces sometimes in spectacular fashion. It is particularly of interest to me, as this was the weapon that made the 'Firefly 'an effective counter to those German tanks, allowing it the opportunity to engage vehicles beyond the ranges of the standard Sherman's 75mm gun.

This looks like it is going to make an excellent diorama, when placed with your gun tractor.

I will keep looking.

John

Hi John,

Thanks for dropping in.

I'm pleased to say there is a growing amount of British Artillery and Anti Tank guns and Anti Aircraft Guns becoming available in plastic, Vulcan and Bronco leading the way, with new early offerings in resin from Resicast and of course Acccurate Armour still have their excellent range too.

Hopefully it won't be too long before we see several versions of a new 6pdr in plastic. It's a great time to be modelling British subjects and I hope the gun crew are the first of more Bronco Crew offerings for their guns and vehicles.

The early war period is being developed by Resicast and that's an area I'm pleased to see more offering in too.

Bronco seem to have put a good research effort into these products so it should be an enjoyable seletion of builds.

Cheers

Al

Looks like the beginning of another great build. I was thinking that you build so much british stuff, you should make a large diorama out of it all

"Space" the final frontier!! - If I had the room I'd already have started already!!

Cheers

Al

Hi folks,

A bit more work on the crew. Bronco supply a set of uniform patches and ranks for the figuers. These are for RA troops from the 50th Infantry Division. However, they only supply 6 patches and shoulder flashes so unless the RA troops only wore these on one sleeve you are 4 sets of markings short for the set!! A bit annoying.

I used Archers Transfers for the Ranks and the Bronco uniform patches on both sleeves on 3 of the troops, the others I'll improvise.







Al

Al, I really like what your doing with this project.

My only concern though is not of your doing, the webbing on the gun crew. I can understand the ecomomics of it, but it would have been nice to have seen a crew in shirt-sleeves or even with unbuttoned BDs ?

That though is more than compensated with with the quality of those accesory sets - they REALLY are impressive. I bought a couple of the 17 pounder sets for my AA 17 Pounder and i'll really have to get this Arty crew as well...

It is my understanding from talking to artillery bods that the wearing of webbing was down to whoever was shouting the orders, but it was far more common with anti tank gun crews than with the larger guns such as the 25pdr. One thing that I know will please the artillery guys I mix with is the lack of an officer who would normally be nowhere near the guns themselves, the rank of the person shouting the orders would be a corporal or sergeant.

Hi Jim & Darren,

Thanks for looking in folks and the comments/thoughts.

Personally I too would have liked a crew in more natural soldierly fashion That woudl suit a dug in/prepared position better. As they stand and my understanding of the Corps Towed Anti Tank weapons would be that they would be depolyed to the threat location, so maybe or at least in my case the webbing is more suitable.

At 'stand to' or going forward close to the action, then skelton order would probably have been worn. Open BD necks and rolled up sleeves whoud have added a lot to the set though. Not quite sure why they only provide 1 set of uniform markings when 2 would be more appropraite. I do like the early double ammo pouches which is the first time I've seen those available

It will be interesting to see how I get on with the decal markings for the shells, the ammo set is a very comprehensive one, plus you get a tree of ammo and cases with the 17pdr gun so lots of goodies to use there.

I''m not too imprerssed with the ammo pouches and packs on the additional equipment tree. They look a bit square and featureless. That said the Thompson, Vickers K Guns and rifles are all really well done and the packs and pouches can be used as stowage elsewhere in a more unnoticeable place, so the crew set is actually very good value for money when you consider what the equipment set sells for on it's own.

Just need more modelling hours in the day.

Cheers

Al

For those who are unfamiliar with it, here's an image of the Double Ammunition Pouch that Bronco have included:

This looks like a nice addition to your gun tractor dio Alan.
One thing I would point out though - the yellow bands on rounds and boxes denote Practice ammunition so may not be appropriate.

Hi Jim,

Thanks for posting up the double ammo pouches, these are a nice addition to previously unavailable British Equipment.

Hi Ken,

Thanks for spotting that I shall have to study my Accurate Armour marking sheet again. I used the kit instruction at the time. I'm not that happy with the colour of the two boxes I did originally anyway so they were marked for a re-paint.

Cheers

Al

Hi folks,

Firstl;y, Ken thanks for the data on the boxes and shells.

The Bronco Ammo set gives you 4 boxes of the following types.

C247 Mk I (Wood) - these are the ones that I have marked with the yellow band. As Ken points out the Yellow Band denotes Practice Rounds but if you leave it off this type contained 2 rds of HE, AP or APC.

C288 Mk I (Steel) These are the smaller of the two and contained 2rds of APDS, APC, AP or HE

C317 Mk I (Steel) These are the larger of the two steel boxes and contained 2rds APCBC

C310 Mk I (Wood) These are the wooden boxes with the Rib on the top and contained 2 rds of APCBC

The wooden boxes are of simple construction and can be modelled open or close empty or with the rds in. You get plastic rope handles to add to the boxes and these can be positioned to suit your needs so you could have a figure(s) carrying them or dragging them which is a nice touch.

The steel boxes are a little more fiddly and require a small PE insert in the open end. then you fit 4 very small parts for the end if in the closed position. You get two options one to show the boxes open and empty or with rds half in/out and one to show the boxes closed. Choose the appropriate PE for the box from the small frets provided. The finishing parts for the closed steel boxes are very smal so be careful of the carpet monster. Hiowever, if you leave one or two open then you will have additional fittings in case of emergency!!

With the decals for both the rds and boxes this is a terrific set of ammunition boxes, really cracking.



















If you're leaving any of the steel boxes empty it might be a good idea to paint the inside first!!!

if you don't need so much ammo then the 17pdr gun comes with a single tree of the boxes and ammo that will give you two of each type of box and shell

Cheers

Al

Alan,
Thanks for this buildlog/review; as an artillery enthuiast and figure, Bronco's 17pdr and crew are on my list. I will be watching this one closely.

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for looking in and I'm glad you're finding this of some use.

Steel Ammo Boxes built:



If your looking for an alternative and don't want to build the boxes then you might like to look at the 17pdr boxes supplied by Accurate Armour.

reviewed here:

Steel

They also do a nice set of wooden boxes but last time I looked no markings for the boxes.



Does anyone know if there is a time period when both steel and wooden boxes were used? I have the Phesant to build some time and was wondering if the steel boxes were a later addition or vise versa?

Cheers

Al

Hi folks,

One thing I just noticed this afternoon about the Bronco Steel ammo boxes is that they have handles on either side! Anyone know if this is correct?

Anyway abit more done, sorted the shells to match the boxes, finished of building the last 2 and marked up the Bronco Steel ones with some decals.









It would be useful if AA came up with a set of markings for theri boxes.

Al

Alan,

You have several boxes done up on a pallet.

Think for a minute. What would/could move a pallet like that in WW II?

I have never once seen a pallet in a combat zone in any WW II photo. Near piers & warves, sure (but much larger and with only one kind of box on the pallet), but at a gun site and with a mixed composition? No, that's a modern thing and not for WW II.

In WW II, the goods were moved forwards in truck loaded & unloaded by hand. There were no fork lifts or DROPS vehicles and no reason to palletise anything, cause there was no way to move the pallets. Boxes were stowed loose and moved, one or two at a time, by gun crews from the ROC/RSC trucks to the gun pits.

Handles on both sides makes perfect sense as these boxes were bloody heavy (probably near 100 lb for one box of two shells) and generally either one guy struggled with one box held by both handles or two guys ran with one box between them. One guy could move two boxes, but usually slowly, by dragging the buggers, one to each hand.

Also, given that, two ropes would never keep them steady enough to move, even on a pallet. Ropes allow the boxes to move too much. You'd need at least two ropes (usually its two steel packing bands) going one way with a third set transversely. But, again, that's for modern prepackaged ammo drop loads.

Paul

Hi Paul,

The palets are for use elsewhere. They are actually loads for the LCM3 but I was thinking of reclaiming a few extra boxes if I needed them as i'll need some boxes for the phesant too!

I've never seen the steel boxes in the flesh so to speak, but I'd be surprised if they had handles on both sides, but you never know.

Al

Hi folks,

A bit more work on the ammo. You get 2 of each type of shell per tree of ammo but only shell markings for one shell which is a bit odd. These are tiny and you'll need a lot of patience to place them correctly. I opted out after several tiresome efforts. A couple of boxes still to paint and mark.

Progress so far.











Gun parts are soaking.











There should be sufficient boxes for both the 17pdr and the Phesant. The Accurate Armour boxes can go owards the Archer, and a Firefly which was theri original intended use.

Cheers

Al

Nice work Alan. Being a predominantly German AFV modeller. It's good to see Allied subjects being released.

Hi Darren,

Thanks, yes, we have gone from famine to feast as far as British Arilllery is concerned. Bronco are doing a great job with their 17pdr, Phesant, new 25 pdr, the Bishop and Archer

Resicast are doing early British Artillery so with what was previously avaiable lots of good things happening. We need a new 6pdr in plastic and it would be great to see some of the larger weapons being done in plastic too so that they were more accessable to the wider modelling community.

Cheers

Al

Hi folks,

Gun construction underway. I started with the wheels for no particular reason other than gettting a feel for the kit. These are very nicly done. You'll need to be very careful with Part B32, the break mechanism as this has a very fragile part attached to it, but once you have it secured it should add a bit of strength.

Then onto clean up the gun barrel, this is drilled out so that it can receive a full round of ammunition. I added the slightly squarer muzzle break whcih I think is late war and in keeping with my time frame although I understand you can find both options in pics in NWE. As the barrel is a complete item there is a slight seem to scrape or file off.

Then onto the breech - this can be modelled open or closed or left workable if you take care when glueing part A35. You have to add Part A46 and A45 to the front edge. these have bevelled edges so fit well when cleaned up. The instructions seem quite clear here so you shouldn't have any problem, just check your breach will close fully as there are two small blocking parts (Part A43) that slip into each side of the breech that might interfer with the the slide if not cleaned up well.

Terry Ashley has already done a build review of the kit over on PMMS and I for one will be referring to that as he's provided some useful information and a nice series of build pics.

http://perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/bronco/cb35024.html







Al

Hi folks,

a bit more work on the sight mechanism. There are a lot of tiny parts here so it will be a slow build as I join things up, wait for them to dry and add the finer detail. The gun is designed to slide if you wish. I've opted to build the sight from the cover out as at least that way I have sometime to fold onto!













Al