Hi all

I'm not a huge armor guy, but I've been doing decal artwork for the better part of 30 years now. I've never done any armor stuff, but the Berlin Crisis of 1961 is of particular historical interest to me. Now that Dragon has done the M48A1, I plan on doing a vignette/diorama of F35 parked in front of the sign that says YOU ARE LEAVING THE AMERICAN SECTOR.

Would there be any interest in a set of decals for that sign, and the no entry sign in front of it (and possibly some other stuff) in 1/35? We're mainly talking black and white here, so not a hugely expensive proposition. This would be traditional silkscreen printed waterslide decals, printed by a well respected printer in Europe.

If you'd be interested, please indicate by replying to this thread. I might need some help on scaling stuff correctly. I've got several hundred photos that I've trolled up in Google, but more is always better.

Cheers,

J

Yes! This is the perfect time for a diorama accessory such as the signage with the Dragon M48A1 kit.

I figured! Bearing in mind I haven't really looked at these vehicles in several years, do you know if #35 (the one seen parked nearest the big sign) had the dozer blade? I believe it was named "General Lee" correct? Did Dragon get the decals basically correct? It would be easy enough (given adequate refs) to throw in decals for some or all of the tanks. As I say, I'm 99.9% an aircraft guy, but this moment in Cold War history has always had my interest. I maintain that it was the tension of the Berlin Crisis that led to my conception My mom doesn't recall specifically...

M48A1 "F35" General Lee did not have a dozer blade but does the searchlight mounted.

Overall the decals are accurate in the kit but Dragon messed up by not including a white star for the turret tops of the Berlin Crisis tanks. This should have easily been caught when reviewing reference images to create the decals.

The Berlin Crisis M48A1 decals in the kit are for F32 General Patton and F25 War Eagle. Both tanks had the searchlights mounted and in some images F32 can be seen sporting a dozer blade.

Does a bear you-know-what in the woods? Heck yeah!

Here's a start on it... Note: I did not create this using a computer font. I have a nice clear, period shot of the sign that's very close to being perfectly square-on to it. I created each and every letter separately in Adobe Illustrator, so this is (as closely as I can make it) an exact duplicate of the 1961 sign.

Very nicely done. The font looks great.

I like the addition of the no entry sign too but I wonder it was actually coloured instead of B&W.

I would be interested as well. I plan on building mine as F25 "War Eagle".

The no entry sign is black and white. It can be seen in a number of color photos of the period.

I also just had myself a 15 oz man's size cup of coffee mug made with the sign on it. I can sell these if anyone is interested...

Went thru Checkpoint Charlie a number of times while stationed in Berlin. That sign brings back some memories.

I too am interested in a set of those decals. I have been wanting to do a F/40 Armor Berlin Crisis tank for a while...

JC

Here's a color photo showing the "no entry" sign...

Perfect...B&W it is!

Hello everybody

I am a new member to ARMORAMA but have been watching with interest for quite a while. Now the Checkpoint Charlie subject has made me register - well, it happened in my home town...(although I was just about two years old then...)

Living in the free western part of Berlin I was always interested in the military vehicles of the western allies (still the M60A1/A3 is my favourite tank).

Since DRAGON announced their M48A1 kit last year I did a little "research" on the Checkpoint Charlie standoff of October 1961 and especially on the US Army Berlin Brigade tanks of that period. Doing so I have been trying to make a list of all M48A1 tanks that were in service with Co. F 40th Armor (the "Turner Tankers", as they were called, because they were stationed at Turner Barracks on Huettenweg, Berlin-Zehlendorf), as far as I could find out using the internet as the main source, see my list further down in this post.

First I would like to mention that DRAGON's decals for Tank 32 are incorrect regarding the tank's nickname: DRAGON provided the nickname "GEN PATTON" for the right side of the turret, and "GEN WALKER" for the left side. That's incorrect, because as it is the tank's nickname it should be the same on both sides of the turret, as it was on all the other M48A1 tanks stationed in Berlin which I found pictures of.

During the Checkpoint Charlie standoff tank 32's nickname was "GEN PATTON". I know there is a photo on the internet (obviously taken from a magazine) showing the left side of tank 32 (identical registration no. 9A2962) with "GEN WALKER" on the turret, but it must be a photo from another time period (probably from August 1961). In this photo the turret numbers are more rounded than on the Checkpoint Charlie photos, and the three white stripes on the gun barrel indicating the platoon the tank belongs to are not present.
On youtube you also find a US Army video "Germany Today - The Big Picture" showing tank 32 on parade in Berlin next to Mc.Nair Barracks (almost at the end of the video, from about minute 27), where it's nickname is "GEN GAFFEY", and of course on BOTH sides of the turret.
Here is the link, hope it works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7jBR4TWQwA

Reason for this seems simple to me: As far as I found out troops quite regularly "rotated" between Western Germany and Berlin. So while the vehicles stayed here, crews changed - and so the tank's nicknames changed as well.

Well, I bought two of DRAGON's M48A1 kits, so I can easily fix this issue...

@Jennings,
the white traffic sign with the black bar is not a "no entry" sign, but it indicates the end of the speed limit. Speed within Checkpoint Charlie was limited to 10 kilometers per hour, as I found on some of the internet photos.
A "no entry" sign would have been red with a horizontal white bar.

As for your idea of providing decals: I would really be interested in a set of decals for more of the Berlin Brigade M48A1 tanks, i.e. "bumper" codes, registration numbers and nicknames, or just a set of generic numbers, letters, etc. to create some of the other Berlin Brigade M48s.

For reference: On "Critical Past" I found a video filmed at Turner Barracks in 1961 introducing the Turner Tanker's 4th platoon and showing many other tanks of Co. F / 40th Armor:
http://www.criticalpast.com/video/65675045571_military-tanks_tanks-parked_turret-traversing_tank-Commander

So now here is my list of the Berlin Brigade M48A1 tanks as far as I could find out. It is far from complete, so any additions/corrections would be welcome, thanks!!

Company Headquarter
F-1 9A???? ?
F-2 9A7935 TIGER EYE (?,not sure, if my reference photo is from 1961, but it definitely belongs to a Berlin Brigade tank)

F-66 9A???? ? (see Question below at end of list)


1st Platoon (all bird names)
F-11 9A2968(?) (?)
F-12 9A2975 CONDOR
F-13 9A3155 ROAD RUNNER
F-14 9A???? FALCON
F-15 9A2971 BLACK HAWK

2nd Platoon
F-21 9A???? OLD HICKORY
F-22 9A???? WARRIOR
F-23 9A???? ?
F-24 9A2957 REBEL (older: CRAZY HORSE)
F-25 9A2958 WAR EAGLE

3rd Platoon (all famous generals)
F-31 9A2969 GEN SHERMAN
F-32 9A2962 GEN PATTON (older: GEN WALKER, GEN GAFFEY)
F-33 9A???? GEN PERSHING
F-34 9A26?? GEN GRANT
F-35 9A3203 GEN LEE

4th Platoon (all bear names, see video at Critical Past)
F-41 9A6211 BERLIN BEAR (May 1960: ROZINANTE)
F-42 9A3204 TEDDY BEAR (before: WHIRLAWAY)
F-43 9A2976 YOGI BEAR
F-44 9A2328 GRIZZLY BEAR
F-45 9A3??? POLAR BEAR

5th Platoon (names of famous aircraft carriers)
F-51 9A2960 HORNET
F-52 9A2661 WASP
F-53 9A2499(?) ESSEX
F-54 9A2954 MIDWAY
F-55 9A9515(?) CORAL SEA

6th Platoon
F-61 9A???? ?
F-62 9A???? ?
F-63 9A???? ?
F-64 9A???? ?
F-65 9A6196 SNOOPY (before: MOX NIX = "Macht nichts" in German, "doesn't matter")


F-66 9A???? ?

My question on the last one to the experts of you:
The turret numbers would be 11 to 15 for the first platoon, 21 to 25 for the second, and so on, up to 61 to 65.
In the 1970's (M60A1 type tanks) there were tanks no. "1" and "2" from Company Headquarter.
At the end of the Critical Past video, when the tanks move out, at the far left end of the lined-up tanks you can see a tank with turret number "66". Was that tank belonging to the company headquarter?

For the "bumper" codes on the fenders:
Here I found different configurations depending on the time period, examples:
BC-40A (Triangle) F-32 (standard for 1961)

Especially for Tank 42 I found three different (older) versions:
BC-6-I-2 TK-42 (nickname = WHIRLAWAY)
BC-6-I 2-TK-42
BC-6-I 2CS42

5th platoon:
BC-6-I-3 TK-53
BC-6-I 3-TK-54
BC-6-I 3-TK-55


Guess that's enough for my first post here on ARMORAMA. Hope it wasn't too boring.

Greetings from Berlin
T.

:-H

I think this is what I'm going to end up going with. Not sure exactly where the speed limit sign was located with respect to the big sign, but it's easy enough to do. And the sign on top of the guard shack is too cool not to do!

Another question: I know Dragon put Berlin markings in the box, but what I'm reading is that they're not complete, and since the kit lacks the search light, they lack the 40th emblem that's seen on that. What if I were to put together a sheet containing all the markings seen on these tanks (done correctly) along with the signs?

Worth the effort?

Tks!
J

Yeah, I think inlcuding the tank markings would be a great idea.

I have a longtime project (unstarted) for a dozer tank there.

Cheers,

Christophe

Guilty as charged on both accounts...

When Dragon first showed me the "prototype" of the kit instruction it only had the first two marking options in it (both missing any "bumper" numbers...) - no tank from the Berlin Crisis at all... I was like "WTF?..." and quickly (I had about one day for it) gathered all references I could and sent them to DML asking them to add Berlin tanks to the kit. They did, but as you both pointed out the results are not perfect. But at least we got SOMETHING for probably the most famous M48A1 tanks (except maybe the Elvis' one ).

First of all welcome to Armorama!!


I can help with some of the answers, starting with your questions about Tank 42, and Tanks 53,54, and 55. According to Wikipedia:

"During the Berlin Wall Crisis of 1961, the Army reorganized the command structure of the forces in Berlin and created the U.S. Army Berlin and created the Berlin Brigade from the units already in the city. The 6th Infantry Regiment,[1] active in Germany since 1950, was reorganized in mid-1958 according to the "pentomic" structure: Each "battle group" consisted of five line (rifle) companies, a combat support company, and a headquarters & headquarters company. The Berlin Brigade had the 2d[2] and 3d Battle Groups, 6th Infantry until 1963, when Army force structure abandoned battle groups in favor of brigades and subordinate battalions.

The reorganized brigade consisted of the following units:

2d Battalion, 6th Infantry
3d Battalion, 6th Infantry
Company F (later 6th Battalion i.e. 1990), 40th Armor"



So those bumper numbers seem to indicate that at one point in time, Tank 42 was assigned to the 2nd Battalion 6th Infantry Regiment, and was in what was either called "Tank Company" (indicated by "TK") or "Combat Support Company" (indicated by CS).

From my experience (about 10 years later and AFTER the pentomic configuration) Infantry Battalions did NOT have a "Tank" company organic to them as part of their Table of Organization and Equipment (TO&E), and their Combat Support Company would have things like the Mortars and TOW missiles assigned. But it's entirely possible that under the pentomic design that company could have had one or more platoons of tanks. The "TK" designation would seem to indicate that at least in THAT case it was a pure Tank Company, however I'm not sure that was true, because it appears that there was only ONE Tank Company in the Brigade at that time.

The same would appear to be the case with Tanks 53, 54 and 55 only in this case they were part of 3rd Bn 6th Inf.

But as I said, since it appears that ONLY one Company of Tanks was part of the Brigade during this period, it may be that only one Platoon of Tanks was part of each Inf Battalion.

However it is clear that the markings for F-32 are for a Tank assigned to 3d Platoon, F Company 40th Armor.

As an aside, my dad was assigned to 2nd Bn 40th Armor ("The Banana Eating Lizards") in Korea in 1958.

As far as your other question, the number assigned to the Company Commander's Tank may vary from unit to unit, or perhaps from time to time, DEPENDING on the whims of the commander's involved. But I would venture to say that if there was an F-1, THAT would be the tank used by the Company Commander, and F-2 would probably be for the Company XO.

Dating back to the old switchboard designation for setting up field telephone communications, the "Commanding Officer" was assigned number 6, and for that reason Commanders of a Company, Bn, Brigade, Division, Corps, have been referred to as "6" for a LONG time. It is likely that F-66 was the Company Commander's Tank.

My Berlin story: My family and I were waiting at my grandmother's house to get on a ship to go to Germany in August, 1961 when the wall went up. All our things were either packed up to be shipped over to Germany or in storage. We were told that the family could NOT go and my dad was ordered to get on a plane and fly over to Crailsheim immediately. We had to figure out how to recover all our stuff and find a place to live on our own. It wasn't until the following year that we were allowed to travel to Germany.
(That was the second of my three "tours" in Germany.)

Hello Pawel,

not really "guilty" in my eyes. Thanks to you we at least got the two Berlin tank options, and that's all that counts in my opinion! And as I mentioned: The issue can easily be fixed: You just have to buy two kits...

By the way: Not every of the M48A1 tanks stationed in Berlin had the small track tension idler between the last road wheel and the drive sprocket! Tank 24 for example:
http://dhm.de/datenbank/img.php?img=ba401161&format=1

Cheers
Thomas

Hi Tom,

thank you! So you and your family were in a way "personally involved" in the Berlin Crisis of 1961.

Here is another photo of tank "66" from November 1961:
http://dhm.de/datenbank/dhm.php?seite=5&fld_0=BA401155


Hi Jennings,

adding the 40th emblem seen on the searchlight cover would certainly be great!

Cheers,
Thomas

If we were all perfect all the time, how boring the world would be. We do the best we can with what we have at the time, right?

:)

For those looking to build a Berlin Crisis M48A1 not all of the tanks had the searchlight and/or dozer blade mounted.

You could build it OOB if you had the correct decals.

Examples would be F24, F31, F32, F54. All of these M48A1s can be seen without a searchlight or dozer blade.

Yes, the searchlight cover emblem is a must have!

Thomas...is the DHM image database worth searching for Berlin Crisis tank images? Is there a particular path to navigate in order to search for images?

Sorry for the delayed answer! Well, the dhm database - at least what you may see online/publicly - is not really a valuable source for this subject.
But have a look yourself:
http://dhm.de/datenbank/dhm.php?seite=10
On the left you see "Suchtext..." on a white background.
Type in the keywords (without the quotation marks) "berlin 1961 panzer" (well, it's a german database, so descriptions are in german...), and you will get 34 results - not really much.

I tried different key words, but it's not really worth the effort in my eyes, because a great amount of photos in this database is blocked due to copyright reasons...

I think google is much more effective.

Cheers,
T.