Airfix magazine 1979 - interwar articles by Noel Ayliff-Jones

I am indebted to Charles, who while contacting me about something else pointed me to a series of articles in Airfix magazine in the second half of 1979.

Covering British Army vehicles between the wars, they were written by Noel Ayliff-Jones.

There were five articles in the series:

1. Early mechanised manoeuvres (June 1979)
2. AFV markings between the wars (July 1979)
3. Tank recovery in the 1930s (August 1979)
4. Infantry vehicles of the 1930s (September 1979)
5. Artillery vehicles between the wars (November 1979)

While the articles themselves are excellent, they are particularly notable for the excellent photographs used to illustrate them. Picture research is credited to David List.

I am posting the fourth article (infantry vehicles) below, and I have added a new page to the Interwar Tank Development blog with all the articles, as they are a very good introduction with excellent photographs.

Infantry vehicles of the 1930s

Noel Ayliff-Jones looks at British trucks and infantry carriers of the 1930s
Airfix magazine September 1979

Bellona Rubber Buildings take 2

David has sent me this photo showing the base of the buildings, marked "Bellona" and with a code number.

Bellona Rubber Buildings

Yes - Bellona not Triang Countryside
Yes - rubber not vac form plastic.

With thanks to DavidP for the photograph of these recent acquisitions of his.

Some are marked with reference numbers - small house H4 front left, bunker M4 in thhe middle, with larger  house H3 and ruined version HD3 behind it on the right. The haystack is in the same style but with no reference number or Bellona branding at the back.

Back to Beamish

I have been back to Beamish today to go through the second album and list all the captions. I have now added these captions and all the interwar photos to the new blog. I have also put a labels gadget early on the page as this is the main means of searching, rather than browsing, the blog.

The new photographs include Carden Loyd Mk VIs of various types, the double half track, an extensive collection of trailers, the Tractor Truck and its variants, Dragons and Light Dragons, bridging, and tilting trials for the Vickers Medium.

Hopefully plenty more of interest. This is all the interwar photos, except some which have not been digitised as yet, possibly because they were too big for the scanner.

These photographs include:
18 pdr tarnsporter of 1922
18 pdr transporter Mk II
Armstrong Siddeley Dragon
Independent Tank - 2 photographs
16 Ton Tank nos 1 & 2
Vickers Medium - 2 photographs
Colonel Breyer D of A (Directorate of Artillery?)
A number of other photos of Mediums Mk i and II.

There are also around 20 photographs of WWII or just post war subjects - 13 of variants of the Valentine, the Tetrarch, Harry Hopkins and several variants of the Alecto. I won't put these on the new blog as they are not interwar but I will look for some other way of making them available.

Next job is to start adding text to posts and methodically looking at the labelling.

There have been more than 6,000 page views on the blog in its first seven days so it looks as if it is proving useful.

Blog Launch - Interwar Tank Development

I am pleased to be able to launch the new Interwar Tank Development blog.

I have put all the photographs from the first Vickers Armstrong Ltd works album held by Beamish Museum in posts with the original captions from the album. In time I intend to add text to all the posts.

Next up will be posting the photos from the second album, but I need to go back to Beamish to sheck the album for the captions and any other information.

The blog also has pages on reference sources and media - this includes links to relevant newsreel clips and an interesting audio archive interview at the IWM.

Exciting times

Well the exciting news is that I came home to a DVD containing the photographs from the two Vickers Armstrong albums held by Beamish Museum.

My first impression was the quality of the photographs. There are also some "action" shots from the trials at Wool in February 1925 and February 1927, and from the Canberley demonstration to Dominion Premiers on Novemeber 13th 1926.

Some Pathe footage of this event can be viewed on YouTube:



Other impressions were how much they were giving half tracks a real go, and there are some very interesting photographs including bridging equipment. I can't  remember seeing any of these photographs in print before.

So what next? I think I will set up a new blog for the photographs and encourage knowledgeable people to make comments which can be added to the posts.

This may take some work; my immediate need is to make sure I have all the original captions from the books, which I don't at the moment. I hope to spread a few interesting photographs around here and on suitable forums. I am quite keen on this so I expect to nake substantial progress quickly - if you remember how fast the Georland blog was done I have a similar commitment to this project.

Once I have a reasonable amount of material on line I will go live and then continue to add to it over time. I hope there will be a substantial amount of information made accessible soon.

Vickers Armstong Ltd photograph albums

After a very pleasant morning at Beamish Museum's Regional Resource Centre I am better informed and have seen some marvellous photographs.. The albums have been in the Museum's collection since the late 1960s. There are two albums: one has an index (pictured above, poor photograph taken today) and the other does not. The contents start with Little Willie (1915) and go up to about 1947, though the WW11 stuff is mostly of Valentines of various sorts.

I don't recall seeing any of the photographs in the albums before - they tend to be factory shots. Highlights include four Birch guns together, a number of pictures of a Vickers Medium bridging tank, and a couple of pictures of the Burford Kegresse MG carrier, one from the front and one from the year.

The museum is going to send me all the images on CD and has given me permission to post them. I will have to work out the best way to do this but there should be some very interesting material starting to come out soon.

And I felt  I was able to give something back as I was able to tell them the difference between a male and a female tank.

Interwar tank development by Vickers Armstrong Ltd - exciting news

This picture is another from the Wonder Book of Soldiers but the good news is I have heard back very promptly from Beamish Museum.

The photographs listed and mentioned in my last post are from two large albums which came from Vickers. As I undesrtand it there may be more photographs than currently listed on the web site but they have been digitised already. I am going to arrange a time to view the albums and will be able to request copies of images. I will see if I can get pernission to post some of the most interesting ones here.

It will be good to see if the photographs from the company records are previously unknown or possibly well reproduced elsewhere.

More interwar goodness

Another pic from the Wonder Book of Soldiers. The wheels on the Carden Loyds identify them as Mark Vs, as used for recce by the Experimental Mechanised Force

I have been intrigued to find 153 records listed in the Beamish Musem's People's Collection catalogue under the heading development of tanks buily by Vickers Armstrong Ltd. The photographs have not yet been digitised but the captions are very interesting and relate mainly to interwar types, It may be these are all very well known photographs or it could be they haven't really been seen before. They could conceivably be from the Company's (Vickers Armstrong's) own records or possibly from some king of directory or catalogue, but it looks to be a single source.. Everything is there - Vickers Carden Lloyd, Mediums 1-3, the Independent, Citroen Kegresse and much more.

The captions are obviously well informed so without seeing antything I wonder if they might be from Vickers Armstrong's contemporary sales material.

I am enquiring aboout the origins of the photographs and if it would be possible to visit and see them.The hope of course would be to move them up the prioirity list for digitising, so they can be generally avaialable.

Mystery interwar AT gun

Can anyone help with an  identification of this anti tank gun?

Georland - progress?

Three newly completed S Range units - the top one is a recent acquisition in two lots from ebay, ACW and originally painted as two Confederate militia battalions, now restored as one large (or two smaller) battalions of US marines. The officers, which came with them, are S Range French Crimean ones and fit rather well I think.

The next two units are S Range Franco Prussian War - Saxon and Prussian line infantry. These have been part finished for around six months as other things jumped the queue ahead of them so it is a relief to get them finished. This means all my FPW guys are done, apart from eight or so generals and staff figures.

The intention is that these will join the forces (S Range FPW, Crimean and some ACW) available to refight the Georland battles. The Marines and also some ACW zouaves will be available  if required.

Were I starting from scratch and could afford to do so, I would go with Peter Johnstone's Spencer Smith Classic 30mm FPW range. These are new figures, not metal versions of any of the old plastic figures. George Keef originally used a collection of c40-45mm demi rondes figures and the Spencer Smith Classics would give an appropriate look in a more manageable format. Maybe one day.

My intention is to use an adaption of Command and Colors Napoleonics both for Crimean War and for Georland. I have now acquired both an additional set of the old TSS 12" terrain hexes and a 6" hex mat from Corsec Engineering so am hoping to make a start sometime soon - just need to work out how I can get my two expanding tables set up in the house with room to move round them.

Experimental Mechanised Force/Experimental Armoured Force

I have long been interested in British tank development and doctrine between the wars, in particular in the Experimental Mechanised Force/Experimental Armoured Force of the late 1920s, and have been assembling some vehicles to portray it in 1/76 and 1/72. While looking for information on the armoured cars with the force this morning I came across this - Pathe News Super Gazette newsreel of Winston Churchill visiting manoeuvers at Tidworth, listed on the IWM site as 1926 and on the Pathe site as 1927 (which makes more sense).

There are Medium Mk IIs, Carden Lloyd Mk IVs, Rolls Royce armoured cars (1920 pattern?), Birch guns on the move, tank signalling with flags, and Burford Kegresse infantry half tracks.

The clip may be well known, but I have never come across it before.

If anyone can suggest a reasonable proxy for the Burford Kegresse half track in 1/72 or 1/76 I'd be very grateful to hear from you. - the nearest I have come so far is the EWM Citroen P19 for Dragons Portees.

Minifigs S Range AWI 3s and 4s Massacheusetts Light Company

What collecting I hve been doing recently has focused on Minifigs S Range. Good honest figures i like nore and more each tinme I see them - and a tragedy that they should have been dropped for the misshapen chunky dwarves we now know as Minifigs and to which I attribute the blame for all the exaggeratedly big headed and handed miniatures of today....

Most of this collecting has been centred on the AWI, SYW and Hundred Years War ranges.

This has enabled me to fill in many of the gaps in pictures on the figures of these ranges on my Lone S Ranger blog. The latest are these rather distinctive AWI Massacheusetts Light Company figures.

If this piques your interest, have a look over at the Lone S Ranger blog. If anyone has examples or photos of any of the figures for which I do not have pictures, I would be particularly glad to hear from you.

I have also been busy painting around 200 medieval figures from the variios Hundred Years War (HYW, Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt) ranges. At some point I may put up some unit pictuires.

Minifigs S Range Medieval (Hundred Year War) ranges

Thanks to a recent ebay purchase I have added on my Lone S Ranger blog listings of the Hundred Years War range and Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt sub ranges,

I am a bit stuck identifying the cavalry figures I have so if anyone can help pictures are posted over on the other blog.

Mystery Medieval Ship

One of the interesting extras which came with a rather fantastic bargain lot of Lamming Medieval figures from ebay was this small metal ship.

The hull length is around 4cm.

Bill Lamming did do Medieval cogs for use with his Medieval Campaign Rules but my recollection from seeing them on his stand at shows (I never had any) was that thy were really tiny. There is what looks to be a manufacturer's mark on the bottom of the hull, but I haven't been able to make it out.

So if anyine recognises the model or can thriow any light on it, I'd be pleased to here from you.

The model is a bit nicer than it appears from the photos, but it is very rough.

Pictures here -

Two pictures of the ship

The marks on the hull

Reunited - more Grove and Benoy

Thanks to Harry who has kindly allowed the centre companies of the 33rd Foot to join their light company brethren at Vintage Wargaming Towers.

Previous VW posts about these figures can be accessed here

First off the gentlemen of the 33rd:

with apologies for the slightly wobbly photograph; then some horses (sadly no riders) showing wire bridles:

And then some guns, marked "heavy" and "demi-culverin", while clearly representing Gribeaval system pieces

While the horses are definitely Grove and Benoy, as shown by the clipped corner rectangular copper bases to which they are soldered, it is hard to be definite about the guns - they came from the same source, but I have not seen a photograph or description of them elsewhere. Garratt in Model Soldiers for the Comnnoisseur refers to Seamus Wade, on the sale of most of the figure to Allan Robinson-Sagar of Toronto retaining figures including infantry, cavalry, foot and horse artillery, bands, mules and wagons and the Duke of Wellintgton and a Spanish priest. Since mules and the Spanish priest are included in the other figures I acquired from the same source it seems likely these are part of Seamus Wade's collection and it is likely that these are the correct guns.

It would be very interesting to hear from anyone who has any of these figures or any photopgraphs of them.

BMSS Tactical Challenge Cup Final 1950

This is the report of the Tactical Challenge Cup Final of 1950 of the British Model Soldier Scoiety (BMSS) Wargames Section, written up in the Bulletin No 2 by Captain Sachs. The two finalists were Grant and Clayton. clayton is assumed to be A G Clayton, at the time both the Honorary Secretary of the BMSS and editor of its Bulletin. Whether Grant was Charles Grant is interesting to speculate but I have no idea whether he was involved with the BMSS at this time. The note to the article reports that Carl Reavley and a Mr Cass replayed this ngagement.

By Request

This is John Norris's Introduction to the Seven Years War article (Part 1) from Wargamer's Monthly magazine. So far it is uncertain that there ever was a part two, which is a shame as it would have covered the figures, rules and books available in 1977 for this conflict.

Lost magazines - Wargamer's Monthly

Thanks to Harry for this curiosity - does anyone remember it? Edited by Sean O'Hogan, it was an attempt at a glossy wargames magazine, published in 1977. This is the only copy I have ever seen. Does anyone know any more, and whether it ever made it to a second issue? The editorial and list of contents are shown below.

Old news I know...

but Vintage20mil is live again and hosted here - no more need for the way back machine