Crusader I and II

[siggian]

I have the 15mm FOW Crusaders and I'm trying to figure out how the hatch opened. Was it hinged at the front, the back, or did it slide backwards?

In most pictures, it's hard to see as it is completely open and usually you have a bunch of people sitting on the turret top with their legs in the hatch. The one Bovington shot I saw, the tank was still undergoing restoration. I've seen a bunch of models and I question their realism because I've seen all three positions and that can't be correct.

I thought the knowledgeable people here would be able to tell me.

(What I want to do is allow my model to be buttoned or unbuttoned in WAT by the positioning of the hatch. The Crusader III model as a open hatch part and a closed hatch part so it is going to be easy to swap them. )

[Baldie]

Looks like the I and Ii slid and the III hinged to the sides.

I may of course be totally wrong.

If you go to the Bovington Tank museum at the mo you can ask the curator questions which they do Q&A sessions each week, you could ask him.

[siggian]

Thanks, sliding would be a lot easier to magnetize and does make sense based on the pictures.

Going to Bovington for the Q&A would be a bit of a challenge for me.

[Baldie]

Meant they do a Q&A via You Tube.

[siggian]

Thanks, I just found an image that confirms a slide back. It shows a tank at the repair depot and it's a shot looking down on the tank.

[Baldie]

Good pick

[Munin]

Is there a date for that photo?

[siggian]

July 23, 1943, which seems pretty late for a crusader I or II

2nd NZEF 4th Armoured Brigade

https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22873968

[siggian]

Thanks to Baldie's info, I completed my first swappable Crusader:



More at https://littleleadwarriors.blogspot.co ... d-iii.html

Of course, that's just the assembly. I still have to paint it.

[Seret]

July 23, 1943, which seems pretty late for a crusader I or II

2nd NZEF 4th Armoured Brigade

They never rode Crusaders into battle, that's for sure.

4th Armoured Brigade was an unusual one, as it had fought its way through the desert war as 4th Infantry Brigade. The leadership of 2nd NZ Division had never been happy with the support given by attached British tanks during the fighting, and successfully lobbied to have one of their infantry brigades re-equipped and retrained as an armoured brigade, essentially making 2nd NZ into the allied equivalent of a panzergrenadier division. 4th brigade's veteran infantrymen went back to school and learned to be tankers. They were initially equipped with some clapped out old Crusaders (and even some Covananters!) for training, but got new Shermans and Stuarts before they shipped over to Italy. Ironically once they got to Italy they found it was an infantryman's war and ended up converting a lot of other units like the Div Cav and MG battalion into more infantry. They kept the tanks though!

More info: http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarl ... a-c15.html