Book Review: Bren Gun Carrier, Robert Jackson

Fantastic! I'm a little surprised at how I've grown to love, or perhaps rather become fascinated by the 'umble Universal Carrier. I can't deny that seeing YouTuber Lindybiege choose it as his second favourite tank (!?)* has been an influence. Prior to that I'd always rather cocked a snook at this little vehicle.

2/7th Middlesex Regt, Anzio, 21 February 1944. [1]

In this, the third of the Land Craft series from Pen & Sword, Robert Jackson elucidates the history in brief of this funny little runt of a vehicle. The story starts in WWI, with the fabulously Frenchified sounding British Major Giffard le Quesne Martel. I won't recapitulate what Jackson imparts very well here. But it's an interesting subject, covered in a brief but comprehensive and highly enjoyable way.

As well as black and white photos of old and current surviving examples, there are eight 3-D renderings and eight pages of colour profiles. The latter aren't the best of their type in the Land Craft/Tank Craft series, but they convey the necessary info. Within all this the book covers numerous variants. There are also the usual segments, Model Showcase and Model Products. Three of the four showcased models are 1/35, the fourth (presented first) is 1/72, my own favoured scale.

Timothy Neate's amazing 1/72 RA OP Mk II.

All four showcased builds are stunning examples of the modelmakers arts. I'm particularly in awe of Timothy Neate's splendid 1/72 Mk II Royal Artillery OP (observation post vehicle), a heavily modified IBG models kit. I've included an image of Neate's model above. I'll be getting/building some of these IBG kits as soon as the occasion presents itself. I may also try adapting some of the chunkier PSC kits as well.

There's quite a bit of useful info on model products in various scales as well. But the book as a whole returns to narrative text and images about the service history of these highly useful and adaptable vehicles, ending with a brief look at a selection of Contemporary Light Tracked Vehicles of the 'tankette' type, such as were based on or influenced by the UC, such as the Polish TK-3, the Russian T-37 and the Japanese Type 94.

A great view into the interior spaces of a UC.

For my money this is an example of this often very useful series at its tip-top best. Reading it and perusing the images is inspiring me to build some more of these interesting little vehicles (I recently built the re-issued Airfix 1/76 kit, with 6pdr gun), whilst simultaneously inspiring and informing on the subject. Highly recommended.

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* Okay, so it's not a tank and he knows it, nevertheless, the charmingly manic Lindybiege chooses the Universal Carrier as his #2 'tank' in his very entertaining 'Top 5 Tanks' video for The Tank Museum on YouTube. The whole thing is worth watching. But if you want to get to the Bren Gun Carrier segment, it's about 17 minutes in.

NOTES:

[1] Photo by Sgt. Dawson, No 2 Army Film & Photographic Unit (source, IWM).

Book Review: Montgomery's Rhine River Crossing, Operation Plunder, Jon Diamond (Images of War)

Over five chapters - Strategic Prelude; Terrain, Fortification and Weapons; Commanders and Combatants; Clearing the Rhineland; Rhine River Crossings and Airborne Assault - supported by a number of maps and lots of excellent photographs, author Jon Diamond gives a solid and comprehensive account of Montgomery's Rhine river crossings.

Monty.

Misc: D-Day 75th Anniversary!

75 years ago, today, the world's greatest military armada landed Allied troops and materiel on the shores of Normandy. I thought I'd remember and celebrate this with a post on the subject.

The first thing I'd like to note is how, growing up in the village of Comberton, five miles west of Cambridge, my family would frequently pass the American Cemetery (read more on the latter here), at Madingley. My dad would never fail to mention it, as we passed, on our way in to or out of town. But even in the ensuing years in which I grew to be fascinated by military history, models and wargaming, etc, I never took a real interest in the place.

The American Cemetery at Madingley, Cambridgeshire.

Indeed, it wasn't until my return to both my old 'neck of the woods', having moved back to Cambridgeshire after about a decade in London, and my eventual return to the hobbies and interests of my youth, which came later, that I finally started to visit the Cemetery, and comprehend its significance. I've been there three or four times now. It's well worth a visit. I was surprised they aren't holding a D-Day memorial service today. But I found out they did so earlier this year. In fact I only just missed it; May 27th.

Rather than me going into it, and why there's an American Cemetery here in the first place, interested parties should read the previously mentioned link, or this post, the latter of which has plenty of interesting info' from a local perspective.

I'll be watching this later. with a drop of vin rouge, to celebrate.

I had hoped that perhaps my Canadian grandfather, Bert Palmer, had taken part in the D-Day landings, or the Normandy Campaign. And he might have, even if only indirectly. Based on some sketchy information from my father I believe he remained in the U.K, due to a traffic accident/injury (sustained under wartime blackout conditions), working as a mechanic and chauffeur.

I reckon I'll take the afternoon off, and watch The Longest Day. But numerous chores need to be attended to first. Speaking of The Longest Day, a phrase I believe Cornelius Ryan got from (or at least attributes to) Rommel - and The Desert Fox was on TV yesterday! - I'm currently reading an excellent book entitled The Germans In Normandy, by Richard Hargreaves. This superb book does for Normandy what Andrew Field's Waterloo, The French Perspective, did for that momentous clash, giving views from 'the other side of the hill'.

An excellent exciting read.

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Some time later... chores mostly out of the way.

I tried to buy a bottle of red wine from Normandy, but couldn't find any in my local Sainsbury. I know the region is more famed for cider and Calvados. But I fancied a decent French red. It wasn't until the day after (i.e. now, on the 7th, when I'm typing this!) that I 'googled' the subject. And as the map below shows, nowadays Normandy isn't really considered a wine region.

French wine regions.

Nevertheless, I did find this producer. No English options on their website, alas. And I haven't tried to see if they sell any wines here in Blighty. Anyway, the wine I bought yesterday - and I departed from my usual tightwad budget of £5-8, and sploshed out (Flyodian pun) on a £12 bottle - whose name/region escapes me now, was terrifically good; soft and smooth as a velvet slipper! Teresa, who won't usually imbibe during the week, took a slug or two when I told her the occasion.

Ok, I'll admit I haven't said a huge amount here about either D-Day itself, or the Normandy campaign, or the contemporary events held on June 6th, 2019. But that's not really the point of this post. This is simply a moment of celebration and remembrance of those seismic events of 75 years ago. So, here's to all those who stopped Hitler's rot. Bottoms up!

And, to conclude, shown above is a very interesting video I found on YouTube, which is a film of D-Day to D+3 footage, as shown to the Allied leaders - Churchill, Eisenhower, etc. - very shortly after the events.

T-34 (+ others) Tank Factory, Update

Yesterday I managed to spray basecoats of green on to my T-34s, and a bunch of Allied materiel. Can't recall offhand what green I chose for the Russian armour. But I know I used Olive Drab for the Shermans, Jeeps, etc. Sadly the aerosol I was using for the T-34s - brand new, and therefore supposedly full - drained in one go. On bringing them all indoors, after spraying them in the garden, I discovered I'd missed one. Took it out and tried, but there just wasn't enough paint in the can. Think I'll do it with my airbrush, as I don't want to fork out for another full (hah!) can for just one vehicle.

I didn't want all the T-34s a uniform green. So when I airbrushed the unpainted tank, I also resprayed a couple, and with one - front and centre above - tried to get a blend of the two, to give a third shade of green. I also checked th colour of the lighter tanks, and found I'd used Humbrol Light Olive (86). Next up, I'll need to paint all the stowage, and other bits and bobs, before I seal it all under a glosscoat prior to adding decals and weathering, etc.

Book Review: Army of Steel - Nigel Cawthorne

NB: The pictures used to illustrate this post are not from the book under review.

I got this at The Works, for just £2, brand new. RRP was £7.99. At that low a price I thought I might as well take a punt on this. Army of Steel is a small paperback, running to just over 230 pages, and it's a light, easy read. There are a few black and white maps and photos sprinkled throughout, but it's not lavishly illustrated. Subtitled 'Tank Warfare 1939-1945', the focus is primarily on the 'panzers' of the German armed in forces in WWII.

How it started: Pz I, Poland, 1939. 

The book starts with a brief and fairly vivid account of the rapid conquest of Poland, before backtracking to look at the rise of tanks as weapons (their role in WWI, Britain/Churchill's championing of them [1], etc.), and their subsequent ascent to a position of central importance in the new 'Blitzkrieg' approach to war, that initially served the Germans so well. The chapter titles convey the arc of the narrative:

1) The Plains of Poland
2) Tanks and Tank Tactics
3) The Making of the Corps
4) Blitzkrieg
5) Into the Desert (This is one of the biggest chapters! Slightly over-represented, perhaps?)
6) Operation Barbarossa
7) Soviet Superiority
8) Tigers in Normandy
9) Last Gasp in the Ardennes
10) Panzer Kaput

Guderian en route to the Ostfront.

Army of Steel is liberally sprinkled with quotes from a wide variety of sources, ranging from inter-war British theorists (Liddel-Hart, Fuller, Churchill), to Panzer commanders like Rommel and Guderian, right down to crews in the thick of the action (characters like Schmidt and Von Konrad), which definitely make for a more lively engaging account. I've heard it said that Rommel's and Guderian's reputations are over-inflated, the former mostly by admirers (inc. many amongst the Allies), the latter mostly by himself. Certainly this book leans heavily on Guderian, and seems to prortray him quite sympathetically. [2]

This book reminds me of Delderfield's Napoleonic history books, in that it was easy, quick and great fun to read, and not a stodgy academic book attempting to cover all the bases, or trying to come up with some new or unique angle or source (such books are often very good, but often also very long, and frequently quite hard work). I would suggest Army of Steel would make a good intro to the subject of tank warfare, especially as it was in WWII, and in particular from the German perspective.

How it ended: a Tiger II, or King Tiger, amidst the ruins of the 1000 year Reich.

What emerges is that, despite Germany's undoubted verve in tank design, the mass-produced standardised tanks of Russia and the U.S. eventually won out by, if nothing else, sheer weight of numbers. Germany's industry, including her access to raw materials, and her tendency to proliferate and over-engineer, all spelled doom in the long term.

As an avid reader of certain aspects of military history, and a model maker cum wargamer, I found this very enjoyable indeed. It covers a lot of territory, in every sense, but remains basic, and easy to digest. I read it over two days, and I'd definitely recommend this as a light entrée to a big and potentially very heavy subject.

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NOTES:

T-34s on the Eastern Front.

Initially outclassing German panzers when they first met, and continuing to outproduce them throughout the whole war, the T-34, as pictured above, typified the Russian war effort. And as if the 'Red hordes' weren't enough, the Germans had to face U.S. Shermans; another front, another superpower enemy, and another standardised tank in seemingly unlimited numbers.

Shermans on the Western Front.

[1] Cawthorne gives the same basic outline as can be found here, at this IWM link, from which I'll quote the following:

 "The name 'tank' came from British attempts to ensure the secrecy of the new weapons under the guise of water tanks. During the First World War, Britain began the serious development of the tank. Ironically, the Royal Navy led the way with the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, establishing the Landships Committee in early 1915."

[2] Most of books I've read on the Ostfront quote Guderian, and usually apparently taking him at his own word. I've ordered both his books: Achtung Panzer and Panzer Leader. The former, published before WWII, is cited by Cawthorne as explicitly counselling against war with Russia, a position Guderian maintained he adhered to, right up until Barbarossa began, after which he stoically did his duty, albeit... well, he paints himself as something of a maverick, in his disobedience and openly critical relations with both the high command and Hitler. He was certainly put out to grass on occasion, even if usually called back in. An interesting subject for further reading?

Pictured above and below, unfinished King Tigers. Had Germany been able to build enough of its end of war weaponry, such tanks as these, along with their jets and intercontinental missiles, might well have significantly prolonged the war. The biggest issues, aside from the proliferation of competing designs, were raw materials and production capacity.

1/76 Airfix K2 Ambulance, Pt.2

It's been aeons since I watched Ice Cold In Alex, and decided on buying and building an Austin K2 ambulance. I no longer wanted to build a diorama based on the film (too much hassle, and nowhere to put it!). Instead it'll become part of my fledgling Allied forces, for future combat with my German stuff.

This was more or less how the K2 was last time I posted.

So, I got stuck back into this one recently. First off I decided to detail the interior, using reference from several visit to museums, such as the Duxford IWM Land Warfare Hall, and the Muckleburgh Collection. It was mostly from the former that I derived the rear interior, and the latter that I worked up the cab and outside colouring.

The interior of the Duxford K2

A closer view (note: nurse has leprosy, first finger and pinky missing!)

My interior is perhaps a shade darker than the creamy colour of the K2 at Duxford, but it's near enough for me (the paler interior pic, directly above, was in fact lightened by me in Photoshop, so as to better see the floor colour/detail). As well as cutting out the very thick chunk of plastic where the communicating doorway window is, I also scratch built two stretchers - one stowed, rolled up, and one deployed - some blankets, and modified some stowage from another kit for a medics satchel and a further blanket roll.

Cutting out that communication window was a beach!

Oops, forgot to paint rear inner doors: colour-match looks close enough to me.

Building plastic-card stowage cupboards...

... in situ and painted.

Inside the rear body roof area, there's a fair bit of new detail: two scratch built overhead stowage boxes, the fan vents, four lamps, and two handle like fixtures, perhaps for hanging drips? Once I'd painted that lot up, and added them to the model, I decide to also add a bit of spare photo-etch detail from some other kit to the floor (there's a lift-up lid on the floor, for accessing a further stowage area), and some kind of dingus on the wall by the door, poss some kind of intercom?

Rear body roof detailing.

Starting to paint internal detail.

Green Stuff for blankets, stretchers, etc.

Extras painted and...

... added to the interior.

front cab/dashboard, windows masked, and glued in place.

At this juncture I noticed it was beer o'clock, and grabbed myself an evolutionary tipple...

And so it came to the time for stripping and cleaning the airbrush again, and checking all the windows were properly masked, so I could spray the exterior body work. Next, a coat or two of gloss varnish, and then the decals. The British armed forces clearly liked their Red Cross roundels, preferring to add as many as they could; including the tiny ones fore and aft on the roof, there are eight on the vehicle in all!

Crap photo of Muckleburgh K2. Very dark green!

Looking quite dark, especially with hi-contrast roundels.

Doors in place (but not glued!).

After the decals went on, it was time for another coat or two of gloss varnish, to seal them in position, and then I could add the two air vent thingies on the rooftop. Pictured below you can compare our Austin K2 with our cousins across the ponds' Dodge WC54.

One minor irritation is that the two rear door roundels are refusing to conform properly to the surface of the model - they lay over the door-handle detail - despite the use of various decal solutions that are supposed to make them adhere more closely to such contours. Can anyone advise on how I might remedy this?

The Dodge WC54, and the Austin K2, side by side.

This was my ref for the tow-rope and these little yellow signs.

'Tie me kangaroo down sport, tie me...' er...

I decided to use some real cotton thread as a tow-rope. I soaked it in a PVA and water solution, to tame the loose fibres, and then repeatedly broke off the tow-bar trying to attach it. I used cyano-acrylite glue to attach the rope. Eventually, after much fiddling and re-gluing, I got it in position, and then painted it. It looks a bit clunky after all that effort. Still, hey-ho, and ne'er mind.

I've also added a scratch-built yellow roundel-plate, with a stencilled no. four on it. What were these markings all about, eh? Anyone care to enlighten me?

The Airfix drivers supplied in this set (I've not built the RAF fuel tanker yet!) are amputees, missing the lower parts of their legs. I popped one in the cab, and could clearly see his missing pedal extremities. So I amputated some from a German 1/72 PSC figure, and performed a graft onto this 1/76 Brit. I'm pleased to say he has not rejected his new ankles and feet. Once he's painted, I'll see if I can slip him in to the cab.

Tow rope painted; driver post-op, with new (German!) feet.

Driver painted. Ooh, I do love this mini-military stuff!

Although I've added a fair bit to this kit, I haven't put any divisional markings on as yet. I think I'll wait to come up with something uniformly suitable on that front, so as to have consistency across my putative Allied forces. 

And, finally (perhaps?), an oil wash with Van Dyke Brown, for the K2, my PST/AER ZIS-5-BS - a WIP I'll be posting on soon - and the Clarktor 6 tractor, as pictured above. When this lot has dried, I'll give them all a once over for some final fine detailing, pop the driver in the K2, and she'll be done. 

Book Review - Ardennes 1944: Antony Beevor

I bought this, my second Beevor book (Stalingrad was the first) at a recent Topping Bookshop talk delivered by Mr Beevor himself. Without any explanatory preamble he plunged us straight into the freezing bloody conflict of the Hürtgen forest, a messy prelude to the what is now best known as 'The Battle of the Bulge'.

For a while I was really rather confused, but as he built up to his central theme, what the Germans initially called Wacht Am Rhein (Watch on the Rhine), a deliberately defensive sounding name (they later renamed it, rather poetically, Herbstnebel, or Autumn Mist) for the offensive that was to be Hitler's final throw of the dice in the West, things gradually fell into place. At first I felt annoyed by what appeared to me a deliberately confusing gimmick. But then I warmed to it, realising Beevor had rather cleverly imparted to us, as we sat listening in a church in Ely, something of the confusion of battle.

The German attack certainly came as a surprise

but it quickly lost steam and bogged down.

It may sound fatuous or redundant to describe a book as highly readable, but of course different authors have different voices, and different approaches, making some more or less easy to read for their equally varied readership. Beevor is, it seems to me, the consummate popular modern military historian, able to tell an engaging story, whilst weaving in a lot of detail on numerous levels, from the strategic or tactical to the political, whilst also giving both the big picture and the small vignettes, the broad sweep of events being enlivened with enough ground level detail to keep it humane and stop it being drily academic.

After setting the scene, the central core of the battle is described day by day, rounded off by a kind of 'mopping up'. During the course of telling the tale of this epic battle - in which Hitler's German war machine managed to scrape together a very sizeable strike force (far larger than anything the Allies deemed the Germans capable of raising, hence the 'calculated risk' which left the Ardennes sector so poorly defended), and then inspire them to attempt a last-ditch effort to reverse the flow of the Allied forces over the Rhine and into the Fatherland - certain themes emerge.

One theme follows the rise and fall of German hopes and morale, whilst another charts the mirror image in the mostly American Allied camp. These contrapuntal themes are further complicated by a parallel and dissonant theme, which Beevor more or less lays at Montgomery's door, even going so far as to speculate on the possibility of Monty suffering from Asperger's syndrome. As Allied fortunes revived, thanks, according to the story as it's told here, to Monty's overweening egotism and a tub-thumping British Press [1] (some things never change, eh?), Britain's attempts to maintain a central role backfired, seeing them levered out of the decision making process. In a way this isn't so surprising, as the statistics speak for themselves: by this stage of the war the Western theatre was clearly and irrefutably an American 'show'. Even the French, fighting to reclaim their own territory, had to play second fiddle to the Yankee Doodle Dandies.

Where there's brass, there's muck?

Monty's repeated demands for overall command

of forces in the north really cheesed off the

American chiefs.

Bradley's ill-preparedness, distant and ill-informed

command from Luxembourg, slow reactions, and then his

spat with Monty, don't show him in the best light.

But although Beevor's account might be seen, rather intriguingly, Beevor being a British author, to pander somewhat to a U.S. viewpoint, he doesn't let the American brass off scott-free: everyone from Eisenhower to Bradley can be seen to dither, or put their own reputations (prestige is a word that crops up a lot in discussions about the internecine strife in the command structure) before the best laid plans or the well being of their troops. And the other side of the American coin is all too often the kind of blusterous bravado of commanders like Patton, who give the impression (as does this account of Bradley) of being every bit as egomaniacal as Monty.

Beevor's decision to progress chronologically rather than by theatre or operation gives the narrative zest and pace, but, as some other reviewers point our, can be confusing, as he jumps around. In relation to this, this book has better maps than many on such subjects, but I still found I couldn't always keep the topographical picture in focus, especially as the narrative hops all over the place. And it also switches constantly between the various sides, Allied and German, or nations within a side, American and English (not to mention Canadian, French and Belgian!), or even between military and civilian.

This pic. appears in one of the several sections

of black and white photos.

Another interesting theme, only obliquely alluded to in the text, is the way in which war, such a horrifying and wastefully destructive process, remains so seductive and alluring (another more critical review of this book rather amusingly refers to WWII as 'the gift that keeps on giving', in relation to Beevor's professional success). Abraham Lincoln aptly describes it thus: 'Military glory - that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood - that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy...' I sense that for all his handwringing, Beevor kind of revels in the horrors of war, as do us readers, rather like the traffic that inevitably slows down and rubber necks in the opposite lane when there's been an accident in the motorway. Whatever the truth of this complex and uncomfortable area, Beevor's account is a richer and better one for the inclusion of this dimension.

What will be the fate of these 'doughboy'

prisoners? They certainly look anxious!

(This pic. is also in the book.)

I recently watched the superb Brownlow and Mollo film It Happened Here, about a successful Nazi occupation of England. I admired that film for its unflinching depiction of such awful yet ultimately mundane horrors as the casual execution of prisoners, by both sides. It's to Beevor's credit that he highlights the hypocrisy, albeit tempered by some considerations (I won't go into the detail here, you can read the book!), that must inevitably surround the condemnation on the one hand of the SS massacres of prisoners and civilians, and the 'reprisals' carried out by Allied troops (war, it seems, is almost always a 'reprisal' for some real or imagined wrongs visited on the aggressor at some prior point!).

By the end of the book the German offensive has failed, in the process draining troops from the far greater threat posed by several millions of Russian troops knocking on the door [2] of Germany's Eastern Front. Beevor delivers the story in an engagingly compelling form, turning the applying suffering and carnage into something very enjoyable for the reader. What a bizarre alchemy military history effects! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and now want to re-read Stalingrad, and get/read Beevor's Berlin and D-Day books.

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I was reading this whilst in Belgium for the Waterloo 2015 celebrations. Whilst in our local supermarket (which was small but absolutely fabulously well stocked) I saw these:

... bloody Bastogne, eh!?

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On a more sobering note, this is worth watching, as a reminder of the potentially traumatising legacy of warfare:

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NOTES:

[1] The Daily Mail was conspicuous in this role, and is the only paper mentioned by name as contributing to the souring of Anglo-American relations thanks to its part in this sad episode of nationalist chest-beating.

[2] Ironically Hitler's comment at the opening of Operation Barbarossa - 'We have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down' - proved much truer when the roles were reversed.