Bold and Swift - RCD's for TY --- EDITED POST

Howdy folks,

 

I'm just keeping up my posting momentum while I enjoy my extended holiday...given the time frame of Team Yankee (mid 1980's) that places the Royal Canadian Dragoons as Canada's armoured regiment in Lahr...post 1987, this transitioned to the 8th Canadian Hussars...so, as further inspiration I thought I'd title this post in honour of the motto for the RCD's, Bold and Swift.

 

 

The Royal Canadian Dragoons

f you've been following for a while, you might remember a couple of command vehicles that I modeled up over the past year for my Cold War Canucks project.  A couple of Command 113's...the CP Track from the Bannon Box (marked up as command vehicle for 1 RCHA) and an M577 Command Vehicle (markings for the first company of the first Infantry Regiment of the Brigade):



Carrying on from these models, mid last year I had begun prepping some Leopard tanks for the heavy metal force for my 4 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group force...enter the Royal Canadian Dragoons.  There are some great online resources for pics for Canadian vehicles from that time frame, but I also sought some advice from friend and fam that had served in 4 Brigade during the 80s.

Painting

So, at the end of the year, I made a concerted effort to get some elements of my RCD squadron painted and modeled up so that I could feel like I actually made some progress.  The main difference with the Canadian Leopards compared to any other vehicles in Germany at the time, was the initial paintscheme of the tanks.  When the Canadians started receiving the Leopard C1 they came from the factory in the standard Leopard colour of violet brown or olive brown...

-picture by Armoured Acorn, taken from ColdWarGamer-

-pic taken from ColdWarGamer, author unknown-

 

For the most part this colour stuck for a while, however when vehicles went in for 3rd line and factory maintenance they would then end up getting repainted...later in the 80s this meant that Leopards started to look closer in colour to other Canadian vehicles...either NATO green or like my command tracks above, Vallejo 924 - Russian Uniform.

-pic taken from TankNutDave-

 

For my C1's, I decided to go somewhere in the middle with a base coat of vj 887, then a 50/50 mix of 887 and 924, I then took a mixed wash of Army Painter strong tone and Citadel nuln oil...this brought a really nice brown hue to the undertones...I then went back with the 50/50, followed by another layer of 3:1-ish of vj 924 to 887.  Finally I took a watered down layer of 924 to highlight certain spots of the tank...

Modeling

To better reflect Canadian Leopard C1's I had to change the XSW-30 infrared/white searchlight...'the box' that you see on early Leopard 1's to the more round PZB200 image intensification system or passive low light level television (LLTV)...the Battlefront box only included the square XSW units.  I was at odds of how to fashion the PZB as it is a fairly small piece of equipment and very difficult to accurately reflect its overall shape...

-picture taken from google, author unknown-

as you can see above the gun mantlet, the frame is kind of oblong with some flare near the opening...the PZB system fits inside the frame...the system is round and rather barrel like...

-picture taken from RUAG Defence Deutschland-

 



So, I had angst over this conversion for some time, however when Plastic Soldier Company recently announced their Leopard C1 kit, I saw how they tackled the conversion and I saw the opportunity to move forward.  So, instead of the square box, I cut down some plasticard rods and then attached some framework around them...I won't reflect the actual piece of kit 100%, however I think it is an effective adapt and overcome to the problem.  The framework I used is the mesh drywall adhesive tape...it is adhesive so it sticks to the rod and is roughly the right scale.

-pic taken from Tankograd Publishing-

As well, I wanted to show camouflage netting on the turret and hull of the vehicles...for this I used some Flexx-rap medical tape that I had some success with previously. 

The Tanks!!

A Squadron, Headquarters Troop





1A - A Squadron Officer Commanding (OC)


1B - A Squadron Battle Captain

For the headquarters troop, I used the white bordered black maple leaf...this was fairly standard for the Canadian Leopards...for my own modeling purposes, I have used 1:87 scale decals instead of 1:100/15mm scale...this is for 2 reasons, 1) availability...it is more difficult to get 15mm decals, and 2) the larger maple leaf does standout more...and I like that.

A Squadron, 1 Troop...numbered 11, 11B, 11C to D looking to my notes, I realized I had brainfarted and started numbering the troop vehicles from A to D...

A more accurately numbered Troop...feel free to enjoy the "older" pics as well...

the troop vehicles renumbered...I tried a different setting on my camera today as well...lighting was a touch lighter...

 

I painted the water containers hanging off the rear of the turret to better differentiate platoons/troops for when I was looking down on the field...1 Troop has 2 spots of Russian uniform/green grey on their containers

 

11 Troop Leader

 

 

 

11A - Troop Senior NCO - WO or Sgt

For this troop, I went with the straight black maple leaf decal without any bordering...not only will it help me to differentiate platoons/troops on the 'battlefield', but there were realworld instances where tank crew used duct tape to hide the white bordering of the maple leaf...

 

11B

 

11C

 

11D...before his promotion to Troop Leader callsign 11

 

 

A Squadron, the force so far...



Hope you enjoy the pics folks...thanks as always for the views, feel free to hit me with constructive critiques and comments.

Cheers.