Up River...one nerds trip to a miniature heart of darkness: Thank God the guns...1 RCHA

Howdy folks,

"Everywhere whither right and glory lead"

I hope all is well on your side of the isolation. I'm happy to be able to show you my latest addition for my 4 CMBG Canucks, A battery, 1 Royal Canadian Horse Artillery. Now as the picture below shows from deployment in Afghanistan, the RCHA of today are now equipped with the M777 howitzer.

However, during the Cold War, and certainly in the setting of Team Yankee, the weapon of 'choice' for the RCHA was the M109 self propelled howitzer. The Canadian Forces adopted the M109A1 in the early 1970s, this model is the one that Battlefront lists as the Canadian version in their 109 box. By the late 70s plans were afoot to field the 'upgunned' and upgraded to the M109A2 in the early 80s and by 1985, all regiments in the RCHA ou en francais, le RALC. If I recall correctly, the Canadians would continue upgrading their guns and by the time they were retired in the early 2000's, the RCHA was using the M109A4+.

I have certainly enjoyed my 4CMBG project, however my biggest pet-peeve is that Battlefront got their research wrong and gave the Canucks the wrong gun. When I was scaling this project, I jumped at the chance to buy a couple of US 109 boxes on sale...assuming the only difference would be the cards. When BF was able to get to the Free nations, I was somewhat horrified to see their Canadian version.

Horror aside, to I committed to the 'accurate' depiction and kept with the long guns. In addition, because i was exercising some OCD on this project, I also scratch built the panoramic telescope which I had never seen stowed before...all the pics I had seen from my brother and google shows the ballistic cover atop the turret. And like most of my 4CMBG vehicles to date...lots and lots of camo netting.

In my research, in numerous photos you can see that the gunners laid down tarps before laying the camouflage netting overtop; I tried to capture this with a few of the models. In addition, it was not uncommon to deploy the .50 caliber with the OPs for point defence when the battery was in position. With the finickyness of the metal guns on these models I constantly kept breaking the .50's off so it was fairly easy to model this habit. If you don't see a .50, that's ok...the OP has it.

I hope you enjoy the pics...take care.