I have a question related to British Cruiser Tanks of WWII



Can anyone tell me how the side of the Cruiser tanks were made?

I am in the middle of trying to gather info on the 'Cruiser Tank Mk IV A13 MkII' and need to know how to build the body, without this info I dont think I'll be getting very far #:-)

Thanks for any help.

Crom

Oh yeah,

Is it the left or right drawing on the above diagram?


Thanks

Or it may be something completly different.

If you know or have drawings / sketches please let me know.

Thanks

Cromwell,

I believe it is the left drawing. That suspension was based on the Christie suspension. Large vertical springs lay between the two armor plates. If you have seen a Italeri BT-7 kit, it has that suspension.

Jeff

If you have Tamiya's Cromwell kit I think you would understand a bit better ...The suspension is covered by an armoured plate ...must have been a bummer for maintenance.

Rick

Ok, if ti is the left sketch, Were the mudguards taken off to service the suspension?

Or

Were the panels up to the height of the bottom of the mudguards?

As far as I can tell there is very little information on the British Cruisers. Ant Philips has been great in giving me so info from an old 70's Airfix mag.

I know these little tanks were well under armed and armoured but I think they look neat and deserve a place on my shelf.

i beleive the mudguards were seperate from the side plates,

the plates themselves were held in plcae by numerous recessed bolts, so i imagine they would have just removed the plates. if you get the new italeri crusader mk1, it will give you the road wheels, mantlet etc for your build,

also the kits suspension will give you an i dea of how the suspension looks

cheers

joe

You may find this photo useful, it is of a Crusader but should be typical of the early crusers.

Okey Dokey, then..............

I will build the chassis as below



I take it that the front of the hull overlaps the inner skin and goes right to the outside. Can anyone clear this up?

I have looked at the Crusader kit it and the only parts I can save are the wheels/tracks and suspension bits.

The external gun mantlet was not used on the A13, although I may be able to use the gun barrel (though not particularlyaccurate.)

The rest of the vehicle I could propably do to within 2-3 mm without a scale drawing.





Well if you all could keep your eyes open for any extra info.............

It will all be appreciated.

Over and out..........

Cromwell

Nice suspension pic of the 'Crusader'

I will use the suspension parts from the Italeri Crusader for this, although should be pretty well hidden by the armour plates.

I am going to attempt to model the 'Emperor' as in the shots above.

Still need more info though. At least I should have a good chance at getting the back looking OK.

PS can anyone tell me what color the unit signs should be? (The triangle on the front right and side of the turret, with which appears to be a 2 or a 3 in it, It may be blue or red.) and as the name of the A13 is 'Emperor' would this be the 5th squad/platoon/company ??

Again anyone with more knowlegde on this please help. Thanks.

OK,

so shoping list

Crusader MkI
Plenty of plasticard, although I will build a cardboard version first of the turret and body.
I could use the tracks from the Italeri kit or....................here comes the question.............

Friulmodellisimo Crusader tracks. These tracks, has anyone out there used these?

Especially the ones for the crusader.

hi

there is a scale drawing in a old bellona series in 1/76 scale.

here are some real measurements.

height of the rear hull at the engine deck is 4 foot
width of hull 6foot
lenth from the rear of engine deck to teh front edge of the drivers is 12ft 3inchs
width of engne deck is 5 ft
width of trackguards 1 ft
bin 4ft 9inchs long

i built it very long time ago , that i ssome of my rough measurements of the actual hull.
can not find the rest,
take a trip to Bovington ,measure the tank & buy the kit.

ossie