Purpose of this blog

Dmitry Yudo aka Overlord, jack of all trades
David Lister aka Listy, Freelancer and Volunteer

Sunday, April 3, 2016

Armour quiz: the Answers

Last week I put up this "How well do you know your armour?" quiz, so here are the answers.

1) http://i.imgur.com/ZBmHSmg.jpg
100% success rate here, its Bovington's Medium Mk.A Whippet. Its named Caesar II, and was the tank in which Cecil Sewell won his VC.

2)  http://i.imgur.com/vR0rnAV.jpg
I know a couple of you will be kicking yourself at this one. As they spent msot of last Sunday trying to work out what it is. Its a Chieftain. You can see the Stillbrew armour, and the post war smoke discharger that gives it away.

3) http://i.imgur.com/t1PXfpu.jpg
Most of you got this one right, its the Covenanter. You can tell it from the armoured covers over the radiators. Their location caused bit of comment when it was first built amongst the British staff, especially the amount of protection around them.
You might ask how to spot it against another tank that has similar arrangements, well to the left of the picture you can see the drivers position, meaning that has to be the front hull.

4) http://i.imgur.com/94AYHy3.jpg
Ahh the first really nasty one! Most of you worked out it was an armoured car, just which particular one was up in the air. To set the matter to rest it was a Coventry armoured car. A pretty interesting vehicle that was designed to replace the excellent Daimler armoured car. However apart from a handful of production model it never went anywhere. This particular one is armed with the 75mm gun.

5) http://i.imgur.com/LPhHxMH.jpg
All of you got this right, it is in deed a Churchill Crocodile. With its distinctive armoured cover for the flame gun

6) http://i.imgur.com/ZHrd3vW.jpg
Again another one which will cause some self kicking, and I got told I was really mean by some of you. Its a Sherman Firefly. The Armoured cover over the machine gun port. At the bottom of the picture you can see the distinctive line of bolts where the armoured casing over the transmission is attached, and on top of the picture you can see the bottom of the bulge where the hull MG gunners hatch normally is.

7) http://i.imgur.com/L8nb1Ry.jpg
Yes Its Bovingtons Renault FT-17. Everyone got that right. However I have got one question about the tank, which I've never had answered, maybe you lot can help. Why is it painted black?

8) http://i.imgur.com/XeSeOEK.jpg
A really evil one, one that I'm kinda proud of thinking up. Due to the issue of scale. I'm glad to say most of you got right. Its a Goliath remote control mine. One Person did have this to say about the picture.
"For the longest time I thought it was a British tank with that suspension."
Hey! British suspension is a masterpiece of engineering... We didn't for the longest time only use a bit of steel cable attached directly to the wheel mounts.

9)  http://i.imgur.com/0iBiFII.jpg
Confusion time. Most correctly identified the suspension type, but some got the wrong tank. Its the suspension mounted on the Alecto, Tetrarch and Harry Hopkins light tank. The give away here is the track guard at the front of the picture. Only the Harry Hopkins had that, the Alecto had a different shape at both the front and back. Fun thing about this suspension Vickers got it going 65mph without any issue, and were confident of going even faster with it.

10) http://i.imgur.com/HWIbHKy.jpg
Nice and easy, and 100% correct from everybody, Its an M3 Grant. Everyone also knew to call it a grant not a Lee as well.

11) http://i.imgur.com/2cwUEmD.jpg
another one you all did pretty well on, I actually thought I might have been a bit mean putting it up. Its a Swedish Strv 103, S-tank. The Anti-HEAT cage armour and he machine gun mount give it away I guess. By the way if you want to wind up the WOT Swedish tank expert, call it a "tank destroyer". He gets really shouty about it being a medium tank. Which it is, to be fair.

12) http://i.imgur.com/etv7Xdr.jpg
Surprised this one stumped so many people, as its the only tank I know of that has this weird arrangement on the side of its turret. Its a Stuart light tank. To be honest I have no idea what this is for, I seem to recall someone mentioning it was part of the tracks, but they look different from the tracks on the Stuart.

13) http://i.imgur.com/3zSDH1r.jpg

Another one which everyone got right... its a Tiger I, most of you lot even gave me its name. Tiger 131.

14) http://i.imgur.com/ZjkFLC0.jpg
And this is where I fouled up. I figured it was obvious, and that it was a unique, if seemingly silly design. Its the brakes from a Valentine. However a couple of you reminded me that the A9 and A10 Cruisers shared the suspension and that funny bulge. So well done to those who named those cruiser tanks, you caught me out.

15) http://i.imgur.com/yzwNvv0.jpg
Another one that many got surprisingly wrong, then later changed their minds on. A number said A1E1 Independent. Which I did have some pictures of, but thought it'd be too harsh to use. The correct answer which most of you got, eventually, was a Vickers Medium. For added "oh!" moments... look in the background.

Well done to you all, it seemed like you had fun, and mostly got everything right.  Next time I do this I'll make it harder. For one I'll either not tell you where I took the photo's, or will use old black and white pictures